
i. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



@p}i, doj^ujngj^t !fij. 

Shelf .-..5.3..^ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THIE 



CHRISTIAN SABBATH 



OIE^ 



WEEI^LY ^ESm DAY. 






^(^'}G3 wy.^^. 



LAMONI, IOWA: 

PKINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE REORGANIZED CHURCH OF 

JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS. 



^^''l 

5^^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, on the 11th day 
of Decemher, 1891, 

By the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ oi? 

Latter Day Saints, 

In the Copyright Oliice of Librarian of Connress, 
Washington, D. C. 



CcniGRES§ 
\VA3flIIIOTOI| 



PREPACE. 



The subject of this little treatise has been one of 
much controversy at different periods since the open- 
ing of the Christian era, and is now the issue usually 
grow'ng out of an attempt of heretical zealots to 
introduce into the Christian system of worship the 
ob eriance of the seventh-day Sabbath, as under the 
Israelitish commonwealth. 

We have tried to avoid, in this effoa:"t, the incon- 
sistency of admitting as binding in letter and spirit, 
under the gospel, nine of the ten commandments, and 
rejecting one — the fourth — by allowing them, as they 
related to the law, as originally intended of God, 
to be of force as a whole with Israel till Christ came, 
since when their spirit and force is found in the law 
of all good government, where their penalties are now 
affixed and executed. An endeavor has also been 
made to develop the superior excellence and perfec- 
tion of the gospel over the law as our religious rule 
of life and ''the power of God unto salvation." 

Since the created universe makes known to 

men the ''eternal power and Godhead" of "the Father 

3 



iv. PREFACE. 

of lights," leaving them "without excuse," (Rom. 
1: 20), and as a seventh-day Sabbath memorialized the 
servitude of Israel in the land of Egypt, and their 
most wonderful deliverance therefrom by the out- 
stretched, mighty, and glorious arm of Jehovah, also 
their formal adoption into the inheritance of Grod. 
(Deut. 5: 15; Ex. 19: 5, 6), what could more appropri- 
ately invite the attention of the world of mankind, 
held in the servitude of sin and death and longing for 
deliverance therefrom, and memorialize that grand- 
est of miracles centering in the person and history of 
Jesus Christ, viz., his resurrection as the crowning 
act and seal of his victory after his contest with 
"death and hell" (and without which the world was 
absolutely without hope), — aye, what could more surely 
invite the attention of the world to their Redeemer 
than the solemn celebration of his Messiahship on the 
day of his resurrection — "the Lord's day," "the first 
of the week"? 

"Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of 
God," who learned the gospel only by the revelation 
of Jesus Christ and on whom was placed the respon- 
sibility "of caring for all the churches for a season," 
celebrated the Lord's supper on the Lord's day, and 
gave "order to the churches of Galatia" and Corinth 
to place their collections for religious purposes in the 
treasury "on the first day of the week" — "the Lord's 



PREFACE. V. 

day." Surely this "order" was in harmony with the 
gospel revealed to him by Christ, else this far-reach- 
ing "order" among the churches is unaccountable 
consistently with any principle of his divine calling. 

We have tried to give duv3 credit to all authori- 
ties referred to. 

With this brief reference to some of the lead- 
ing thoughts and facts treated of, and with an humble 
trust that the cause of truth shall have been con- 
served to some degree by the effort, and craving 
charity toward its unintentional defects, we submit 
it to the reader. 

Respectfully, 

The Writer. 



CONTENTS 



Pages. 

CHAPTER I. 

Two Systems of Divine Law. 1-4 

CHAPTER II. 

The Two Systems of Worship 5-6 

CHAPTER III. 

The Weekly Sabbath, or Eest Day, under the Law 7-24 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Eden Idea of the Sabbath Institution Examined. . 25-32 

CHAPTER V. 

Abrogation of the Law 33-38 

CHAPTER VI. 

The First Covenant was Faulty 39-54 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Weekly Sabbath. 55-61 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Covenant — The Ten Commandments 62-74 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Weekly Rest Day Under the Gospel 75-90 

CHAPTER X. 

"The Lord's Day''— The First Day of the Week , 91-95 

7 



Yiii. CONTENTS. 

Pages. 

CHAPTER XI. 

Flistorionl Identity of 'The First Day'^ with "The Lord's 

Day/' 96-107 

CHAPTER XTI. 

Did not Originate with Roman Bishops. First Day 

and Lord's Day Identical 108-117 

CHAPTER XIII 

Did the Pope Change the Sabbath ' 118-123 

CHAPTER XIV. 

"The Apostolical Constitutions" 124-183 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Original Words 134-139 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH; 

OR WEEKLY REST DAY. 



CHAPTER I. 

TWO SYSTEMS OF DIVINE LAW. 

By the records given of God to the human race, since 
the creation, it is apparent that law and order was de- 
signed of him, to characterize the lives and motives and 
actions of the human family, in their relations to him 
and to each other. Hence we find by looking into the 
records given, that he has been pleased to reveal two 
systems of law, both general and specific in their char- 
acter, in different eras of the world; the object of these 
laws being, if lived up to, the formation of governments 
in order to the development and well-being of man, tem- 
porally and spiritually, to exalt them in the scale of 
their being to the highest possible good. 

In the Bible these two systems of law, from their na- 
ture and intention, are called ''the two covenants" a, 
'Hhe law of God" 6, and ''the gospel of God"— of Christ 
c. Both are designed to bring about an agreement be- 
tween God and his people, and both having been given 
to the Jews during their national existence, Moses hav- 
ing been sent to deliver them from the bondage of Egypt, 
he, the ordained mediator of the one, and Christ Jesus, 
afterward sent, the teacher, high priest and mediator of 
the other. They are, in the record, by contrast^ called 

aGal.4:24. 6Neli.lO:28. c Rom. 1:1, 16. 



2 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. ' 

the ^^Jirst,'' and the ''second" ''covenants" cZ. Also, the 
"law of Moses" e, and "the gospel of Christ," or, "of 
Jesus Christ"/. Out of these two systems of laws, in 
their operations and application among men, grew two 
governments — organized kingdoms — one called "the 
kingdom of Israel, " because it pertained to the children 
of Israel only g; the other "the kingdom of God" ^, ^, 
"of his dear Son," "the body of- Christ"/^, "the house- 
hold of God" I 

The contrast between the law and the gospel reveals 
its completeness when we come to consider the fact that 
the law, in its provisions, when given to Israel at Sinai, 
was temporal — designed to serve for a time only — and 
then to be superseded by the gospel of Christ, which, in 
its nature, is eternal. The blessings flowing out of obe- 
dience to the law, or "first covenant," were all to be 
realized in this life, and pertained to this life only. Like- 
wise the penalties to follow its violation were to be vis- 
ited on the transgressors in this mortal state of exist- 
ence, during the time of its designed duration. ' 'Honor 
thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long 
upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee" a. 
Also, in the enactments growing out of the decalogue, 
or constitution of the government of Israel, the Lord 
renews the conditional promise of long life. Conditional? 
Provided they rested the seventh day, kept the feasts of 
the Lord, and served no other gods, God would "take 
sickness away from" them, and the number of their days 
would he fulfill h. On the other hand the punishment of 
the transgressor of the law was inflicted by the hands of 
its administrators, as in the case of the Sabbath breaker: 
"And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall, be sure- 

d Heb. 10:9, 16. e Mai. 4:4. /Mark 1:1. g 1 Kings 9:5. Acts 1:6. 

h Luke 4 : 43. i Col. 1 : 13. Jcl Cor. 12 : 27. I Eph. 2 ; 19. 

a Ex.- 20: 12. & Ex.«23:25, 26. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 3 

ly put to death, all the congregation shall stone him 
with stones, without the camp" c. Thus it was with the 
individual transgressions, but when the nation as such, 
violated the law, God, whose law they had covenanted 
to keep, vindicated the law by national calamities; 
plagues, famines, unsuccessful wars, and death and cap- 
tivity. We need but to carefully read the blessings for 
obedience, and the curses for disobedience, to be entirely 
satisfied on this matter df. And when the Israelitish 
economy was brought to a close, and the law was abro- 
gated according to God's design concerning it. Holy 
Writ informs us that, '^every transgression and disobe- 
dience received a just recompense of reward" e. 

On the other hand the gospel^ G-od's plan of eternal 
salvation, has for its basis the principles of the doctrine 
of Christ, of the oracles of God/, being spiritual and 
eternal in their nature, and the laws based upon them 
constituting the gospel system are perfect, and hence 
we read, ^'The law of the Lord is perfect, converting 
the soul" ^, and, ^'whosoever looketh into the perfect law 
of liberty^ and continueth therein, he being not a forget- 
ful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be 
blessed in his deed" h. 

The blessings that follow the faithful obedience of the 
children of men, to the gospel, relate not to this life 
only, but also to the eternal ages to come. The law 
could not give eternal life: "Is the law then against the 
promise of God? God forbid; for if there had been a law 
given which could have given life, verily righteousness 
should have been by the law" i. "I do not frustrate the 
grace of God: for if righteousness come hy the law, then 
Christ is dead in vain"^. Also the violations of the gos- 
pel by man are reserved to the life to come to be visited 

c Num. 16:85. rf Deut. chapter 28. cHeb. 2:2. /Heb. 5: 12 and 6: 2. 
g Ps. 19: 7. h Jas. 1: 25. i Gal. 3: 2. j Gal. 2: 21. 



4 THE CHKISTIAN SABBATH. 

upon the transgressors. Jesus says: ^^He that reject- 
eth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judg- 
eth him: the word that I have spoken^ the same shall judge 
him in the last day" h. 

The law could hill, but could not forgive — ^^take away 
sin" I — and therefore it is called ^^the letter;" "for the 
letter killeth;" "the ministration of death, written and 
engraven in stones" m; while the "law of Christ," the 
gospel, is designated "the law of the spirit of life in 
Christ Jesus," that liberates "from the law of sin and 
death" n. Thus does inspiration array in contrast the 
two systems of law given to govern the race, in their re- 
lation to Grod and each other; the object of the law being 
to instruct, educate and civilize in this world, the other 
to regenerate, moralize and prepare us for the special 
blessings of G-od in this life, and adapt us to the joys, 
honors and glories of the redeemed in the ages to come: 
"Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us 
unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But 
after that faith (the faith revealed through Christ) is 
come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster o. 

A; John 12: 48. ZHeb. 10:4. m 2 Cor. 3: 6, 7. n Rom. 8: 1, 2. 
oGal. 3:24, 25. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE TWO SYSTEMS OF WORSHIP. 

Under the two systems of law revealed of Grod, two 
separate and distinct orders of worship were established. 
Under each, men were required to acknowledge and ren- 
der homage to our heavenly Father. The order of serv- 
ice in both laws is specifically set forth. The first cove- 
nant was made with the children of Abraham only; they 
alone were to be partakers of its privileges and blessings. 
Moses said to Israel: "For what nation is there so great, 
who hath Grod so nigh unto them, as the Lord our G-od 
is in all things that we call upon him for? And what 
nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judg- 
ments so righteous as all this law which I set before you 
this day" p. "He showeth his word unto Jacob, his 
statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not 
dealt so with any nation; as for his judgments, they have 
not known them. Praise ye the Lord" q. "For when 
the Gentiles, which have not the law^ do by nature the 
things contained in the law, these, having not the law, 
are a law unto themselves" r. Not thus was the gospel 
to be circumscribed to any one nation or family, but was 
to be "good tidings of great joy unto all people" s. The 
gospel of God's grace, and "repentance and remission of 
sins," for the obedience of faith should be proclaimed 
among all nations t\ "Go ye therefore, and teach al] 
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to 

p Deut. 4: 7, 8. q Ps. 147: 19, 20. r Kom. 2: U. s Luke 2: 10. 
< Luke 24: 47. 



6 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; 
and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the 
world" u. 

The worship under the first covenant was typical in 
its nature, and but the shadowy reflections of a better, 
a spiritual, an enduring and more substantial order of 
worship to be afterward presented to Israel and the 
world, and established. It was limited, as we have seen, 
to Israel, both in its duration and in its location. Of the 
locality where this first covenant was to be kept, also of 
its rewards, Moses, its "mediator," said: "Know there- 
fore this day, and consider in thine heart, that the Lord 
he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: 
there is none else. Thou shalt keep therefore his stat- 
utes, and his commandments^ which I command thee this 
day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children 
after thee^ and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon 
the earth, which the Lord thy God giveth thee v. And 
because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their 
seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with 
his mighty power out of Egypt; to drive out nations 
from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to 
bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, 
as it is this day'' w. "In the land" which God gave to Is- 
rael — the land of Canaan^ was where the law was 
designed of God to be kept inviolate x. 

u Matt. 28: 19, 20. v Deut. 4: 39, 40. w Deut. 4: 37, 38. x Ex. 20; 12. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE WEEKLY SABBATH, OR REST DAY, 
UNDER THE LAW. 

It has seemed wise in G-od, in the establishment of his 
worship, under the laws given, to institute a weekly rest 
— of worship and devotion — one day out of each week of 
seven days, that his children may rest from the arduous 
duties of life, and have in special remembrance the Giver 
of life, and offer up thankful reverential praise and devo- 
tion for all his loving kindnesses, mercies and blessings. 
This day of rest once a week is only one of a series of 
requirements to be observed, whether under the law or 
imder the gospel. By the law the seventh day of the 
week, usually called Saturday^ was designated as the 
weekly rest day y. But since the introduction of the 
gospel of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the ''bet- 
ter covenant, which was established upon better prom- 
ises" z^ a division of opinion has existed among the 
worshipers of G-od as to which is the proper and divinely 
accepted day of the week to observe, the seventh or the 
first day — Sunday. A large majority of Christians, 
holding the belief that Sunday is the proper weekly rest 
day, have sincerely observed it as a day of worship, 
believing, of course, that the ^'covenant" in which the 
requirement to observe the seventh day was embodied 
was taken away in Christ, ''that he may establish the 
second" covenant a, and because it is a notable fact that 
there is no enactment of God in, or under, the new covenant 

y Ex. 20:10. «Heb. 8:7. aHeb. 10:9. 



8 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

that requires the ohservance of the seventh day as a day of 
rest and worship. Now it is a principle in law, both 
human and divine, that no two or more distinct and dif- 
fering wills, on any subject, or estate, by any one testa- 
tor, is binding or valid at one and the same time: ^'Then, 
said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O G-od. He taketh 
away the first^ that he may establish the second." Thus 
the Apostle Paul teaches in writing to the Hebrew 
Saints, on this very principle of the validity of wills, and 
shows that God recognized this principle, and acted upon 
it, in the establishment of the gospel. 

It will now be very essential for us to inquire minutely 
as to what the covenant which G-od made with Israel at 
Sinai consisted of, for it is just on this point almost 
entirely, that the division of opinion is based in regard 
to which is the right day to observe as the Sabbath, the 
seventh or the first day of the week. By the advocates 
of the seventh-day Sabbath, the unity of the law or cove- 
nant given to Israel at Sinai is denied. It is assumed by 
them that the covenant made with Israel, and written 
in the book of the law, did not include the ten command- 
ments^ and that tliey were not a part of the first covenant, 
or will, that was taken away by Christ, that he might 
^ 'establish the second. " 

But we now ask: Are the ten commandments, as form- 
ulated at Sinai, anywhere incorporated into the new cove- 
nant as a part thereof? We have failed, so far, to find 
it so recorded in the Christian covenant. 
• It is also asserted that the decalogue is the moral law 
of G-od, is the immutable law, and therefore it cannot be 
annulled, changed or superseded by another. That this 
idea is an assumption, and wholly without proof, is 
shown by the fact that G-od, nor any man inspired of 
G-od that we have any record of in the Bible, ever applied 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 9 

the words moral or immutahle, or their equivalents, to 
the law ol the ten commandments. 

Separate all the rest of the law given to Israel from 
the decalogue, and let it stand all alone, absolutely so, 
as recorded in the twentieth chapter of Exodus, and then 
carefully consider it for awhile, and the following points 
plainly appear: 

1. The ten commandments do not positively enjoin the 
worship of God nor point out any mode of divine wor- 
ship, but teach that the man who strictly abstains from 
idolatry, whether he worships or not, keeps the first two 
commandments. Jesus did not quote from the decalogue 
when he said to the devil: ''For it is written. Thou shalt 
worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou 
serve" b. 

2. Not to use the name of God when swearing to that 
which was false, was keeping the third commandment — 
''And ye shall not swear by my name falsely," is Moses' 
comment on this command c. And, in the new covenant, 
Jesus instituted the following to take its place. ''But I 
say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it 
it is God's throne; neither by the earth; for it is his 
footstool; neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the 
great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, 
because thou canst not make one hair white or black. 
But let your communication be. Yea, yea, Nay, nay; for 
whatsoever is more than these cometh ofeviV^ d. Now, in the 
light of all the provisions of this enactment of Jesus 
Christ, what is the use of the third commandment of the 
decalogue? Does it serve any practical purpose to the 
follower of Christ? 

3. The man who quietly stayed in his tent or house, 
and did no work on the seventh day of the week, and 
with his family, servants and beasts, rested from all 

6 Matt. 4:10. c Lev. 19:12. d Mait 5: 34-3T. 



10 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

labor, kept the fourth commandment, according to the 
letter of it, whether engaged in any manner of worship 
or not, so far as anything we may learn from the deca- 
logue in the abstract, is concerned. Any man can do 
that in a nominal sense, and not be particularly religious 
either. Just keep the seventh day holy! 

4. The other six commandments relate wholly to the 
obligations of the various classes of society to each other, 
including those of the family and neighborhood, and 
were not exclusively peculiar to the Jews, for such con- 
ditions as are there enjoined have ever characterized the 
more refined and better regulated states of society, 
anciently in Ethiopia, Egypt, Chaldea, Greece and 
Rome, as well as in mediaeval and modern times, as 
attested by the history of those countries. On this 
point Paul said, 'Tor when the G-entiles, which have not 
the law, do hy nature the things contained in the law^ 
these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves; 
which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, 
their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts 
the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another" e. 
What law does the apostle here refer to? Let him 
answer: ''Behold thou art called a Jew, and rest est in the 
LAW, and maketh thy boast of God, and knowest his 
WILL, and approvest the things that are more excellent, 
being instructed out of the law; . . . thou that preach- 
est a man should not steal , dost thou steal? Thou that 
say est a man should not commit adultery, dost thou com- 
mit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou com- 
mit sacrilege?"/. By the language of this text we learn 
that "the law," the works of which many of the Gen- 
tiles did, though having not the law, was the decalogue. 
Moreover we learn by this language of inspiration that 

e Rom. 2 : 14, 15. / Rom. 2 : 17-22. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. It 

this law of the ten commandments was a part of that. 
^ 'first covenant^'' or "will" that Paul refers to when he- 
says, "Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. 
He taketh away the first [will] that he may establish the 
second" g. 

5. The principle incorporated into the second com- 
mandment, viz., God "visiting the iniquities of the 
fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth gen- 
eration," is inconsistent with the doctrine of the personal 
responsibility of each individual, as viewed in the light- 
of "the law of the Spirit of life, in Christ Jesus," to 
whom coming, as unto a light that shineth in a dark 
place and the darkness comprehendeth it not. Indeed, 
it was not applicable under the government of Israel, in 
so far as the execution of the law and its penalties by 
human agency were concerned, for we read: "The fathers 
shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall 
the children be put to death for the fathers; every man 
shall be put to death for Ms own sin ' h. But when the- 
whole nation of Israel went into transgression, and re- 
fused to return to the observance of the law, God visited 
them with national calamities (as before observed), with 
pestilences and great plagues, when they should break 
his covenant i. He punished them seven-fold, with con- 
suming diseases — epidemics, drouths, giving them into- 
the hands of their enemies who should rule over them, 
and the fruit of their land would be smitten. He would 
break the pride of their power, and they should be rohhed 
of their children. He would lay waste their cities, deso- 
late their sanctuaries, visit them with such dire and 
strange calamities, that even their enemies would be 
astonished at them; and if they refused to "be reformed'^ 
by all this great punishment, then they should even be 
destroyed out of their land, and it be left desolate, and 

g Heb. 10: 9, 10. h Deut. 24:16. i Lev. 26: 14-33. 



12 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

"they left few in number. And when these sad predic- 
tions were all fulfilled against Israel, and their children in 
-exile were made to feel that they were thus suffering on 
account of "the sins" of their ''people Israel," need we 
wonder that the captive Daniel prayed, "O Lord, accord- 
ing to all t^y righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine 
:anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jeru- 
salem, thy holy mountain: because for our sins, and for 
the iniquities of our fathers^ Jerusalem and thy people are 
a reproach to all that are about us" j. Laws or cove- 
nants involving this principle could not, in their very 
nature, unless such principle was eliminated, be an 
adjunct to, or a part of the gospel. The law of Christ 
does not deal with nations, as such, in that manner. 
Nor does it propose penalties either in this world or that 
to come, wherein the children shall, in any sense, or to 
any degree, be held responsible for the iniquties of their 
fathers; but, on the contrary, "Every one of us shall 
give account of himself to God" h. 

6. There are some who seem to have discovered such 
a high degree of morality and perfection in the ten 
commandment law that they, in their claims for it, assert 
that it is the code that governs in heaven; that the 
angelic hosts in their exalted sphere render homage to 
Grod in accordance with its requirements. "It existed," 
say they, "before man was created. The angels were 
governed by it" I, If this statement be true, the Sab- 
bath was not instituted in Eden^ or "made for man'^ 
only, but for the angels as well! Will one of the believ- 
ers of this "spirit of prophecy" give us a dilation on the 
application of the decalogue, in all its bearings, to the 
conduct of the angels? Perhaps they will enlighten us 
as to how the angels order their households, including 

Dan. 9: 16. Tc Rom. 14: 12. I Mrs. E. White, in 
"Spirit of Prophecy," vol. 1, p. 261. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 13 

their servants and beasts of burden on the Sabbath dayf 
Possibly they could render clear to our understanding- 
what effect it would have on the angels in heaven were 
they to fail to carry out the letter and spirit of the fifth 
commandment J or the tenth and last one, for instance. 
This would be a source of edification that the gospel of 
Christ fails to afford. Now we believe in revering the 
law of G-od given to Israel, just as he designed we should, 
but we do not wish to make claims for it that, in their 
logical deductions, would render it ridiculous, or that 
are absurd. 

7. We here observe that, by the law of the ten com- 
mandments, no one can be convicted of sin, unless guilty 
of committing the overt act by it prohibited. It does not 
make the conception of the act in the hearty or its desire, 
sin. Nor can we determine from them what the penalty 
is for their violation, or, indeed, whether there be a pen- 
alty save for the violation of the first two; and that, as 
we have seen, is for national transgressions. Now to 
illustrate the truth of this statement^ take the case of 
the man who ''gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day,"" 
whom the children of Israel incarcerated till Moses 
might be informed of the Lord what the penalty might 
be m. "If there be found among you, within any of thy 
gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee, a man or 
woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the 
Lord thy God, in transgressing his covenant^ and hath 
gone and served other G-ods n, and worshiped them, 
either the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven, 
which I have not commanded; and it be told thee, and 
thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, 
behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such 
abomination is wrouo^ht in Israel: then shalt thou brino^ 
forth that man or that woman, which have committed 

m Num. 15: 32-35. n Dent 17: 2-7. 



14 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that 
^v\^oman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. 
At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witness, shall 
he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the 
mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death. The 
hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him 
to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So 
thou shalt put the evil away from among you." This 
passage of holy writ demonstrates the fact, that the law 
of the ten commandments is a part of tJie covenant that 
God made with Israel at Sinai — that law prohibiting 
idolatry — and that to break it was ''transgressing Ms cove- 
nant;'' and, that its violation was determined by an 
earthly court^ and that by an earthly court was the pen- 
alty executed. It further shows that, in its very nature, 
it is no part of the code that constitutes the unexecuted 
'thoughts of wrongdoing, sin. Only He who knows the 
secret operations of the human mind and affections, can 
judge and convict, and he can convict justly^ only^ after 
the law is revealed defining evil thoughts to be sin. 

With the foregoing facts concerning the ten command- 
ments, as viewed abstractly and apart from the statutes 
and judgments that actually grew out of them, carefully 
noted, we notice again the further fact that, if Moses did 
not add /o the ten commandments as originally given on 
the Mount Sinai, they are not aU contained in the record 
as found in Exodus, chapter twenty. For as they stand 
recorded as rehearsed by Moses from the second set of 
tables, these additional words are found: ^'And remem- 
ber that thou wast a servant in the land of Eg3^pt, and 
that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through 
a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the 
Lord thy God commanded tJiee to keep the Sahhath day' o. 

That Moses did not add the contents of the verse cited, 

oDeiit. 5: 15. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 15 

but that God spoke these words, Moses declares: "These 
words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the 
mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of 
the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no 
more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and 
delivered them unto me" p. Observe now that the rea- 
son here assigned by the Lord, why he commanded Israel 
to keep the Sabbath day holy, is omitted from the copy 
we have of the decalogue in Exodus. But it is substan- 
tially the wording of the title to the enactment of God in 
ordaining, formulating and recording the other nine also: 
"I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out 
of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" q. 
These are reasons God gave for requiring Israel to keep 
the ten commandments as formulated and given to them 
at Sinai, and shows us that he designed them to be kept 
by those so brought out of Egypt, from ''the house of 
bondage." And further, th^y show that the claim made 
by seventh-day Sabbath advocates, that the fourth com- 
mandment is a memorial of creation and designed to com- 
memorate God's work, in the creation of the universe, is 
an assumption, The decalogue nowhere states that the 
Sabbath was or is a "memorial," either of God, or his 
creation; nor does the Bible anywhere so state, so far as 
we know. The claim is an assumption; for this, the 
Bible says, is God's memorial, "And God said moreover 
unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of 
Israel; the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abra- 
ham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent 
me unto you; this is my name forever, and this is my 
memorial unto all genenerations' z. Now join the fact 
that God brought Isriael out of the land of Egypt 
attended with such wonders and signs as to demonstrate 
to them his Almighty power and goodness, and this 

1> verse 22. g Ex. 20:2. « Ex. 3:15. 



16 THE CHiaSTIAN SABBATH. 

Name, his ^ 'memorial,'' together, and the divine reason for 
Israel's keeping the Sabbath, assigned in Deuteronomy, 
fifth chapter and fifteenth verse, becomes obvious. And 
so inspiration understood this matter in after times, for 
David, recounting the wonderful works of God in deliv- 
ering Israel from Egypt and planting them in Canaan, 
in fulfillment of his promise to Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacob, concludes with these words, ^'Thy name^ O Lord, 
endureth forever; and thy memorial, O Lord, throughout 
all generations" 7\ But again, we have no evidence in 
the Biole that the decalogue was ever revealed to man 
till it was given to Israel at Sinai: ''For until the Jatv sin 
was in the world; but sin is not imputed where there is 
no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses^ 
over them that had not sinned after the similitude of 
Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was 
to come" s. And this accounts for the fact that, in all 
the history of things prior to Moses, we have no account 
of the injunction being given to anyone to observe the 
seventh day as the Sabbath. 

G-od made a covenant with the children of Israel at 
Mount Sinai. The decalogue was made the basis of that 
covenant. The covenant was national in its character. 
As a nation they had to be located. By this covenant 
they were to be organized into a ^'kingdom," someiohere 
on earth. This kingdom was to be of a twofold nature, — 
a kingdom at once religious and political, the religious 
phase of it being largely ceremonial, being governed 
by that department of the code of laws, and so we read: 
*'Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of 
divine service, and a worldly sanctuary t. Novv^ the ten 
commandments, being the foundation of this covenant, 
it must, in its nature, be a religio-political enactment, 
and hence it is that six of the ten commandments relate 

r Ps. 135: 13; Ex. 3: 15; Hos. 12: 5. s Rom. 5: 13, 14. t Heb. 9: 1. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 17 

directly to the relation of man to his fellow, while four 
relate to the obligations of man to God. The decalogue 
was so all-important a factor in the covenant that, some- 
times by a figure of synechdoche, where a part of any- 
thing is put for the whole, the ten basic conditions of the 
covenant are called ''the covenant." ''And he de- 
clared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you 
to perform, even ten commandments: and he wrote 
them upon two tables of stone" tt. Indeed, sometimes 
a single enactment is called a covenant, as, when Canaan 
was given to Abraham the rite of circumcision is called 
a covenant u. Doubtless the reason why this is so, is, 
because it was the sign or seal of the covenant, v^ with 
Abraham, and as the rainbow in the cloud was in the 
covenant made with Noah to. In the covenant made 
with Israel at Sinai, the Sabbath day was assigned the. 
important position of token, sign, or seal; also "a per- 
petual covenant" x; and like the rite of circumcision was 
to be observed by Israel "throughout their generations" 
by a perpetual covenant, just like the atonement Sab- 
bath y; or the statute governing the weekly arrange- 
ment of the shewbread z. The seventh-day Sabbatb 
then, was the seal of the covenant made with Israel at 
Sinai. This covenant was to give way to the new and 
everlasting covenant, we are taught, the covenant rati- 
fied by the blood of the Son of God. Will the old be re- 
enacted — made anew — or will the Lord make a new cov- 
enant? 

What is the seal of the new covenant? Not baptism^ 
for that seems to have been foreshadowed by the natural 
birth, under the law. Natural birth brought one into 
the literal kingdom of Israel; but in the new covenant 
we are told that "as many of you as have been haptized 

«Deut. 4: 12, 13. 1*060.17:9,10. v Rom. 4:11. i« Gen. 9: 12, 

a; Ex. 31. yLev. 23:31. -? Lev. 21: 8. 9. 



18 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

into Christy have put on Christ. And if ye he Christ' s^ 
then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs accordmg to the 
promise." The act of making covenant, on our part, 
could not be the seal of it. The seal of the new covenant 
seems to be an act consummated on the part of Glod 
thus, "In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the 
word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom 
[Christ] also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with 
that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our 
inheritance until the redemption of the purchased pos- 
session, unto the praise of his glory." And, "Now he 
which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath 
anointed us, is G^od; who hath also sealed us, and given 
us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts" a. 

The decalogue, separate and apart from all other law, 
statutes and judgments, with no rewards or penalties, 
and therefore not administered or executed, is a passive 
or inactive formulary, and hence it is that, in the nature 
of the case, definitive regulations, of equal authority with 
itself, must be provided; and so we find in the history 
of the case that, when Moses went up into the Mount to 
receive the tables of the covenant, God also gave him 
statutes and judgments so that the code might become 
operative, such judgments and statutes having the sev- 
eral ten commandments for their basis, as we read in 
the twenty-first, twenty-second and twenty-third chap- 
ters of Exodus, the Sabbath being no exception. And 
after all this, and Moses had written the v^^ords of the 
Lord in a book, and the people had heard them and 
freely agreed to keep them, the people, the altar, and 
the book of the covenant, were sprinkled v/ith "the 
blood of the covenant," which God had made with them 
^'concerning all these loords.'' Of God's -doings in the 
Mount, Moses said: "And the Lord commanded me at 

' aEph. 1: 13; 2 Cor. 1: 22. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 19 

that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye 
might do tliem in the land whither ye go over to possess 
it" h. 

Since law is inoperatue unless administered, who were 
the authorized, ordained administrators of this law? 
Who were to instruct the people and see that the law 
was carried into effect? Answer: ''And the Lord spake 
imto Aaron, saying. Do not drink wine nor strong 
drink, thou nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the 
tabernacle of the cono-reo^ation. lest ve die; it shall be a 
statute for ever throughout 3"our generations; and that 
je may put difference between holy and unholy, and 
between clean and unclean; and that ye may teach the 
children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath 
spoken unto them by the hand of Moses" c. "If there- 
fore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for 
under it the people received the law), what further need 
was there that another priest should rise after the order 
of Melchisedec and not be called after the order of 
Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, tliere is made 
of necessity a change also of the laic' d. 

Now, if G-od gave tico separate and distinct codes of 
law to Israel at Sinai, the decalogue and the ceremonial, 
the former immutable, but the latter mutable and tem- 
porary, and if the latter only was, as was designed to 
be, abolished 3^t the death of Christ, what law is it that 
is. "of necessity,'' changed? The only law left, according 
to the assumption that two were given, is the ten com- 
mandments. Now to abolish a law, is not to change it. 
The heavens and the earth are to be changed e. The 
children of G-od are all to be changed, at the resurrec- 
tion /, but not abolished nor exchanged. To abolish 
one code of law. and institute an entirely different and 

&Deut. 4:14. c Lev. 10: S-i i. JH-b. 7:11, 12. e Pleb. 2: 13, 
/I Cor. 15:51. 



20 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

distinct law in its stead, is not to change the law, but 
institute an entirely different, distinct and new order of 
things. This consideration, it seems, is fatal to the 
"two-law" theory. But from the last scriptures quoted, 
we learn that the Aaronic Priesthood were the adminis- 
trators of the old covenant. Again, '"For the priest's 
lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek tlie laio 
at his mouth" g. But the priesthood of Christ did not 
minister that covenant, nor did Christ constitute his 
servants ministers of that covenant. Says Paul, "Not 
that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as 
of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who also hath 
made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the 
letter^ hut of the Spirit: for the letter killeth, but the Spirit 
giveth life. But if the ministration of death [the letter], 
written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that 
the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the ■ 
face of Moses for the glory of his countenance: which 
glory was to be done away; how shall not the ministrjtion 
of the Sjjirit be rather glorious" h. 

The ministration of Moses, when his countenance was 
so illumined that Israel could not steadily behold it, was 
on the occasion of his descent from the mountain "with 
the two tables of testimony," "and all the children of 
Israel came nigh: and he gave them in commandment all 
that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai" i. 
And the command, "Six days thou shalt work, but on 
the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in 
harvest thou shalt rest," was among the things then and 
there administered j. Moreover, the Lord told Moses to 
write "these words," "for after the tenor of these tvords I 
have made a covenant with thee and with Israel." . . 
"And he wrote upon the tables the words of the cove- 

g Mai. 2:7. h2 Cor. 3 : 5, 6, 7. i Ex. chap. 35. j verse 21. 



THE CHEISTIAN SABBATH. 21 

nant, the ten commandments" h. Of this covenant — the 
ten commandments, mcluding the seventh-day rest — 
Paul says he and his fellow laborers in the Christian 
economy G-od had not made them ministers. They, then, 
did not preach or practice, or administer to others, that 
law, or hold it as of force in the kingdom of heaven. It 
was a law of death. They administered ' 'the law of the 
Spirit of life." 

8. One thing more is lacking in the decalogue, view- 
ing it as a separate code from the rest of the system. It 
does not define when the seventh-day rest shall begin or 
end, whether at sunset on Friday evening, at midnight 
following, or on Saturday m_orning as we say. No light 
is given us on this point till the regulation is given, as 
we learn, when Moses went into the Mount to receive 
the statutes and judgments I. Nor does the decalogue 
define whether there shall be ^'a holy convocation" on 
the Sabbath or no. When the Sabbath was given to 
Israel in ''the wilderness of sin" they seemed to be 
entirely ignorant as to what was meant by the Sabbath, 
so much so that, when the people gathered the double 
portion on the sixth day^ ''all the rulers of the congrega- 
tion came and told Moses." Then Moses proceeded to 
instruct thoiTo. on the subject thus: "This is that which 
the Lord hath said. To-morrow is the rest of the holy 
sabbath unto the Lord: bake that which ye will bake 
to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which 
remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morn- 
ing" m. 

Had even the riders of Israel been tauo'ht concerning 
the Sabbath, and had been hcdoituated to its observance 
weekly, they would have luiderstood the matter without 
going to Moses about it. They did not have to go to 
Moses to learn whether the man "that gathered sticks 

fc Ex. 35:27, 28. Z Lev. 23:32. m Ex. 16:22-30. 



22 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

on the sabbath," had transgressed^ or no^ after the Lord 
had uttered the ten commandments on Mount Smai. 
Only the penalty for the transgression they desired to 
learn. The Lord fed Israel miraculously in the wilder- 
ness, and gave them regulations pertaining to the gath- 
ering and use of it, also prohibiting their gathering the 
manna on the Sabbath day, and when the children of 
Israel failed to observe those regulations which God had 
given ^Ho prove' them, the Lord asked: "How long 
refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws," and 
then follows another regulation relating to the manner 
of observing the Sabbath, as follows: "See, for that the 
Lord hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you 
on the sixth day the bread of two days: ahide ye every 
man in his pJace^ let no man go out of his place on the 
seventh day." 

If Israel had been instructed thus from their youth up, 
there would have been no necessity for the explicit infor- 
mation here given. "So the people rested on the sev- 
enth da,y," not even cooking their food. But it is prob- 
able that these restrictions ceased with the manna, for 
after the giving of the law there was a statute given, 
authorizing "a?i holy convocation'" on the Sabbath, and 
this would necessitate the going "out of their place" on 
the Sabbath, to attend the assembly n. 

But -none of these regulations of human conduct are 
found in the decalogue, therefore we are not taught by 
it what it is to keep the Sabbath day "/^o/?/," but we 
must look elsewhere for the law explaining hoio to keep 
it holy. And the fact tha^t God did, by other enact- 
ments, give Israel to understand v/hat he meant by 
their being required to keep the Sabbath day holy, leads 
us, undeniably , to the conclusion that God did not design 
that the decalogue was to be understood as a complete^ 

n Uv. 2-3: 3. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 23 

immutable, unchangeable, irrevocable code of lav/ any- 
where and in any age. 

G-od made a covenant with Israel at Sinai. A cove- 
nant denotes a coming together of mutual parties, and a 
mutual agreement. At Sinai God and Israel came 
too'ether in mutual aoxeement — covenanted vytli each 

CD CD 

other; God agreeing to do certain things for Israel upon 
certain conditions, and Israel agreeing to hear and obey 
God's lav7. But such a thing as a covenant v/lthout 
condi.nons is inconceivable. The conditions are the things 
that both parties to a covenant agree to do conditionally. 
They are the specified requirements of the covenant. 
This proposition is true of every covenant that God ever 
called any people of any age to make with him. The 
basic specifications of the covenant made at Sinai are the 
ten commandments, but i"^ also included the testimonies, 
statutes and judgments. Moses so understood this sub- 
ject, and that the conditions of the covenant as then and 
there made pertained to no other covenant that God ever 
had made. The proof of this is the fact that, when Moses 
rehearsed the law, nearly forty years after the covenant 
was made, he began by quoting the fundamental specifi- 
cations of the covenant as follovv-s. also including the 
statement that God had not made this covenant with 
any other people: ''And Moses called all Israel, and 
said unto them, Hear, O, Israel, the statutes and judg- 
ments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may 
learn them, and keep, and do them. The Lord our God 
made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not 
THIS covenant loith our fathers, but i.is. even us. who are all 
of us here alive this day. The Lord talked with you face 
to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire, (I stood 
between the Lord and you at that time, to shew you the 
word of the Lord: for ye were afraid by reason of the fire, 



24 THE CHRISTIAN Sx^BBATH. 

and went not up into the mount), saying^ I am the Lord 
thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, 
from the house of bondage" o. This passage of Bible his- 
tory is as plain as comment could possibly make it, as to 
what the covenant was, of which the seventh-day Sab- 
bath was a part, and luhere^ and ivlieii^ and with ivJiom this 
covenant was made. The reason assigned here in the 
words of this covenant tuJiy the Israelites were to observe 
the Sabbath, is, ''And remember that thou wast a serv- 
ant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy Grod 
brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a 
stretched out arm ; therefore the Lord thy God commanded 
thee to keep the sabbath day. " Observe: The fact that God 
brought Israel out of Egyptian bondage, attended with 
stupendou^s manifestations of his glory and power, is not 
only the reason why they were to keep the seventh day 
holy, but also God's reason for instituting the command, 
as a part of his covenant with Israel. '^Therefore the 
Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day;" 
and, for this reason, God could give this command to no 
other people but those so brought out of Egyptian bond- 
age. 

By the enactment of God on Mount Sinai the decalogue 
was formulated and ordained law, conjointly with the 
statutes and judgments that rendered it operative p. 
And by virtue of the covenant entered into, and sancti- 
fication and ratification with blood, it became binding — • 
of force q. And such a process with regard to any pre- 
cept, ordinance or observance, is its institution. And 
thus we have the manner of the institution of the sev- 
enth-day Sabbath as well as the place where, and the 
time ivhen, and God's reason why, all plainly revealed. 

oDeut. 5: 1-21. p Deut. 4: 13, 14. (j Ex.24: 1-8. 



CHAPTER lY. 

THE EDEN IDEA OF THE SABBATH INSTI- 
TUTIO]^: EXAMINED. 

It has been assumed by nearly all classes of professors 
of religion in Christendom that, because at the conclu- 
sion of the creation God ended his work on the seventh 
day, and on that day he rested, and, because that after 
having rested that day ''He blessed the seventh day, 
and sanctified it." that he therefore instituted the sev- 
enth-day Sabbath in the garden of Eden a. That this 
idea is an assumption is shown from the fact that there is 
not a passage of Scripture supportive of it in all the 
Bible. The reason assigned, and only one, why G-od 
sanctified the seventh clay of the creative c^^cle is '^be- 
cause that in it he had rested from all his work, which 
God created and made." Nor is there a word connected 
with the narrative, giving the faintest idea of a Sabbath 
institution there for man, much less of a Sabbath enact- 
ment in Eden. 

This Eden Sabbath theory assumes that the six days 
of creation were of only twenty-four hours duration 
each, as man measures time, and as a consequence the 
absurd idea goes with it that God just spoke the mate- 
rial world into existence out of nought — nothing — in just 
one hundred and forty-four hours -of common time! Of 
course, it would not do to admit ihdX hefore the creation 
''the earth was'' h yet unformed — not created — even if the 

a Gee.;;;: 3. &Gen. 1;2. 



26 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

Bihle does so affirm; for that might involve the gradual 
development or scientific idea of the creation, and that 
would make the six days of creation too long, and, conse- 
q.uently, the seventh day, to suit the theory of the Sab- 
bath in Eden, as inferred from the passage in Genesis, 
chapter two, would be too long. Now, it appears from 
the history we have of the creation, that the adjustment 
of our solar system to the earth, and of its parts to each 
other, so as to measure and create for us day and night, 
was a part of the fourth creative day's work. We do not 
know how long it took the light of the sun, after God 
created it, to reach the earth, nor do we know the length 
of the first three creative days. But the six days of 
creation are all summed up as one day — ^^the day that 
the Lord God made the earth and the heavens" c. 

In Paul's reference to that seventh day when God 
ended his work, although v/riting to the Hebrews, he 
does not call it the Sabbath, but seems to refer to it 
as being typical of the "rest" that God offered to Israel, 
and classes it with ''another day" of rest, of s^n inclef- 
nite length, that remains for the people of God. And 
further, he saj^s that Israel was the first to whom this 
rest of God was preached, and in the wilderness was 
tliQ tmiQ iclien it was "first preached." Now, if this be 
true, it was not first preached to Adam in Eden d. 

But if that seventh day that God rested on was a day 
of twenty-four hours, he did not rest on that day because 
he had previously appointed it and sancthled a sabbath, 
and of course Adam did not sahhatize on that day, for it 
had not yet been appointed a sabbath. Adam was not 
created till the sixth day of creation. The seventh was 
his first full day of life. He had not worked six days, 
and the Sabbath is to succeed six days of labor. It is 
just as great a sin not to labor six days before we rest 

c Gen. 2: 4. dHeb. 4:1-^. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 27 

the seventh, as to refuse to keep the seventh; just as 
much a transgression of the law, "aS^ix days slialt thou 
labor' e. To refuse to keep the letter of that law, was 
to vitiate the spirit of it, and that was sin. 

In harmony with this fabled idea of a Sabbath in Eden, 
it is imagined that our first parents retired to some 
quiet spot in the garden on the Sabbath, and there, in 
solemn seclusion, with reverence, did ''remember the 
Sabbath day, to keep it lioly^'' just as though they were 
sufficiently developed, mentally and morally, to discern 
between one day as being more holy than the others, or 
as though the distinctions between the sacred and the pro- 
fanet]i&n. existed and were by them recognized and appre- 
ciated. But, unfortunately for this idea, it is all imag- 
ination ; such a condition of things had not obtained with 
Adam and Eve till they progressed sufficiently to eat of 
the fruit of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," 
for after eating of that fruit they became sensible of the 
fact that it was necessary to get some "fig leaves" and 
make aprons with which to clothe themselves. Eating 
of that fruit had such a wonderful effect on their mental 
powers and developed them so that Grod said, "Behold 
the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: 
and nov/, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the 
tree of life, and eat, and live forever; therefore the Lord 
God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the 
ground from whence he was taken" /. Now we have no 
evidence that Adam was permitted to remain in the gar- 
den of Eden over another seventh day after partaking of 
the fruit, and these facts show plainly that the idea of a 
Sabbath institution for man in Eden is not correct. 

The Bible says that after , and because God fcai rested 
on the seventh day of the creative cycle, he blessed and 
sanctified that day; but Jioio long after we are not told 

e'Ex 20:9. /Gen. 3:22-24. 



2S THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

in the book of Genesis, and hence we look elsewhere for 
this information. The first time the injunction to 
observe the Sabbath was given, was to Israel after their 
deliverance from Egyptian bondage. This is the exact 
fact, so far as the Bible record shows. AVe pass over 
the patriarchal age as nothing is found in the record of 
those times pertaining to the Sabbath, and, arriving at 
the waters of Marah along with the children of Israel, 
and being camped there, with no water that they could 
drink, they "murmured against Moses." and '^he cried 
unto the Lord; and the Lord shewed him a tree, which, 
when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made 
sweet. There he made for them a statute and an ordi- 
nance, and there he proved them" g. The Lord informed 
Moses what this '^statute" and ''ordinance'' was that he 
there made to prove them with: but Israel went on to 
Elim. and from Elim they "came to the wilderness of 
Sin,'' on the fifteenth day of the second month after leav- 
ing Egypt. At Sin they murmured for bread, and here 
the Lord sent the manna, and gave certain regulations 
about the daily gathering of it, to ''prove them, whether 
they" would walk in his Iau\ or no^. No law seems to 
have been specified by Moses till the twenty-first day of 
the second month, and then, when, on the sixth day, the 
people gathered twice as much as on either of the previ- 
ous five days, the ' 'rulers of the congregation came and 
told Moses," and he then informed them what the Lord 
had said, ''To-morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath 
unto the Lord.'' . . . '"See, for that the Lord hath given 
you the sabbath" /. Then Israel being informed what 
the "statute" and "ordinance" was. that God had made 
for them, that he might "prove them." . . . ''rested on 
the seventh day",/. This narrative unlocks to the under- 
-standing this statement of our Savior: "And he said 

g Ex. ]5: '^3-'^5. Ji Ex. 16: 4. i verse C3. J vtrse 30. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 29 

unto them [Pharisees], The sabbath was made for man, 
and not man for the sabbath'' A*, as to the pUice where, 
the time whe)i, and the people for whom, the Sabbath 
ordinance was made. This "ordinance," like the Pass- 
over, afterward became a part of the national code; was 
the sign of the covenant made at Sinai, and a memorial of 
the deliverance of Israel from their rigorous servitude 
in Egypt and was attended by the grandest series of 
wonders of the Divine hand ever seen displayed /. 

Having taken a review of the assumptions underlying 
the position of those holding to the perpetuity of the 
seventh-day Sabbath, viz., that that Sabbath was insti- 
tuted in Eden, and that it is therefore a memorial of the 
creation, or of God's rest; also the assumption that the 
decalogue is G-od's perfect law, the acme of all moral law, 
and is therefore immutable and eternally perpetual and 
unchangeable, and found them to be simply taking for 
granted the things that ought to be proved, and the very 
points for which no Bible proof exists, we now submit 
the following: The assertion that the decalogue is the 
moral, immutable law, and therefore 7)fy7)r/^'a7, implies 
that that part of the law not contained in the ten com- 
mandments and that was (as is admitted) abolished and 
not perpetvial, was not perfect nor moral, and that God 
gave a law to Israel that was not moral! Yet notwith- 
standing this anomalous position, our Savior found two 
divine commands in the law (and not found in the ten) 
that gave to the ten whatever moral effect they exerted 
or possessed, and on which they depended, and were 
therefore '^the great' commandments in the law, viz.: 
*'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is 
the first and great commandment. And the second is 
like unto it, Thou shalt love thv neighbor as thvself. 

^•Mark'^ier. ZDeut. 5:15. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 30 

On these two commandments hang all the law and the 
prophets" m. By this statement of Christ, we learn, not 
only that "the great" commandments of the law were 
found elsevv^here than in the decalogue, but also that he 
recognized that the law, in its entirety, was a unity ^ and 
not divided^ as to its m.oral and ceremonial phases. 

The phrases, ''Law of the Lord," or "of G-od, and "law 
of Moses," do not imply two distinct and separate laws, 
the one moral and the other ceremonial. The law given 
•of God to Israel through Moses is all one laiv, as a code. 
It v\^as ordained for, and applied to, a government that 
was at the sam_e time civil and religious — a union of 
church and state — and hence it is that the decalogue, the 
fundamental basis, the constitution of the code of law, 
contained four obligations relating to the service of God, 
and six that pertained to the relation of man to his fel- 
lows. This law that constituted Israel a "kingdom of- 
priests," is, by the apostle James, called "the royal 
law," and included the ten commandments: "If ye ful- 
fill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well; but if ye have 
respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of 
the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the 
ivJwIe Icao, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. 
Por he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also. Do 
not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou 
kill, thou art become a transoTessor of the law" n. "For 
this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not 
kill. Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false wit- 
ness. Thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other 
commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, 
namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thj^self" o. 

This law required that a man only love his neir/Jihor^ 
for "he that loveth another, hath fulfilled the law." But 

m Man. 22 : 37-40. n James 2 : 8-11. o liom. 13 : 9. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 31 

James desired the Saints to conform to a law higher yet 
than that "royal law" in moral culture, more wealthy 
in spiritual endowments; one which did not limit their 
charitable services to neighbors onhj^ but a law involving 
this principle, "Therefore all things whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye also to them 
likewise. For if ye love them [only] which love you, 
what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love 
them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, 
what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. 
And i.^ ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, 
what thank have ye? for sinners lend to sinners, to 
receive as much again. But Jove your enemies^ and do 
good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your 
reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the 
Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the 
evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is 
merciful" p. And while this is the law and the prophets, 
it is to be noted that it is not the doctrine of the ten 
commandment division of it. And hence it is that James 
cites us at once to "the perfect law of liberty," exhort- 
ing us to "'so speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be 
judged by the law of liberty" q. 

Thus the apostle recognizes the unity of the law- - 
"royal law" — and does not appear to know anything 
whatever of this artificial division of the covenant God 
made with Israel at Sinai, which division is made, evi- 
dently, in the interests of the seventh-day Sabbath 
theory. The world of mxankind will be judged at the last 
day by "the law of liberty" — the gospel of Chris • — that 
which makes men "/ree from the law of sin and death" r. 

Luke recognized that the law which was called by 
Jewish custom "the law of Moses," was "the law of the 

|>Luke6:31-36. 2Jamee2:l>. r Acts 17: 31; Rom. 2: 16; 
Heb. 10:28, 29. 



32 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

Lord," ^^the law/' and was a unity s. Likewise our 
Savior called that law, ''the law given of Moses," as 
also ''^Ae Jcao' t^ and quoted from any portion of it suit- 
able to the case in hand, as may be seen by referring to 
Matthew, chapter five, calling it all by the simple 
title, "the law." 

The modern idea, then, of dividing the law, designat- 
ing the divisions, moral^ and ceremonial^ respectively, is 
unauthorized either by the Bible or any inspired prec- 
edent. And until its abrogation, according to the orig- 
inal design, Christ enjoined strict obedience to all its 
requirements, including the ''least" commandment, the 
jots and the tittles u; nor did he follow the example of 
those v/ho "have h^Qu partial in the law." (Mai. 2: 9). 

s Luke 2 : 22-24 ; 10 : 25-27. t John 7:19. u Matt. 5 : 18, 19 ; 
8:1-4; 15:1-6; 23:2. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ABROGATION OF THE LAW. 

We now pass on to notice briefly the end, or abroga- 
tion of the law, as a code, in order to the establishment 
of the "better covenant, w^hich was established upon 
better promises." For, says Paul, "if that first covenant 
had been faultless^ then should no place have been 
sought for the second" v, "Everlasting righteousness" 
awaited the advent of the Messiah for its introduction. 
(Dan. 9: 24). "A law" should "proceed from Him;" 
"and the isles" waited for "A2s law.'' He was to be, 
and is, "for a covenant of the people, for a light to 
the gentiles."— Isa. 51: 4; 42: 4-6. "Behold the former 
things are come to pass, and new things do I declare; 
before they spring forth I tell you of them." — verse 9. 
Thus did the prophets view beforehand, by the Spirit of 
Christ which was in them, the bringing in of the "better 
hope," by grace and truth. 

If, then, the Messiah came that we might have life,, 
and that, too, because the law could not give life, and,, 
therefore everlasting righteousness was not introduced 
by the law; and, also, inasmuch as the inheritance of the 
Saints is not of the law, what was Vhq purpose of the law? 
— "Wherefore then serveth the law?" Answer: — "It 
was added because of transgressions, till the seed should 
come to whom the promise was made, and it was 
ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator." And 
* 'knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous 

vHeb. 8:6, 7. 33 



84 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

man, but for the lav/less and disobedient, for the ungodly 
and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers 
of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 
for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with 
mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons. 
and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound 
doctrine; according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, 
which was committed to my trust" w. Because of trans- 
gression it was necessary that a law be made and given 
to the children of Israel, the penalties of which should not 
be deferred to ''the world to come" for visitatioii o].> 
the transgressor; hence the law was added to the ^'prom- 
ise" made to Abraham, which promise embodied the gos- 
pel preached to him, namely, that in Abraham and his 
seed, [Christ], all nations shall be blessed x. This added 
law was ''ordained oy angels in the hand of a mediator." 
The angel that appeared to Moses in Mount Horeb called 
himself "the Lord God of your fathers" y. Again, "And 
the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, 
to lead them the way. And the angel of God, which 
went before the camp of Israel, removed and went 
behind them" ;2. "And the angel of his presence saved 
them." — Isa. 63:9. The explanation to thus using the 
term "angel" interchangably with the name of God is 
thus given: "Behold, / send an angel before thee, to 
keep thee in the wa}^, and to bring thee into the place 
which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his 
voice, provoke him not, for he tvill not pardon your trans- 
gressions; for my NAME is in him. Bat if thou shalt indeed 
ohey his voice ^ and do all that I speak, then I will be an 
enem.y unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine 
adversaries" a. The authority of the angel was the 
authority of God; and the voice of the angel was to Israel 

twl Tim. 1:9-11. a; Gal. 3: 8-19. 3/ Ex. 3: 2, 14. ^r Ex. 13:21. 
tt Ex. 23 : 20-23. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 35 

the voice of God, In the light of the explanation here 
given, the following is of force: "This is he [Moses], 
that was in the church in the wilderness with the an^rel 
which spake to him hi the Mount Sinai, and icifh our fath- 
ers; who received the lively oracles to give unto us." . . 
"Who have received the law by the disposition of angels 
and have not kept it" h. Of the words spoken by the 
angel in Mount Sinai it is said: "These words the Lord 
spake unto all your assembly in the mount, out of the 
midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, 
with a great voice; and he added no more. And he wrote 
them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto 
me" c. Paul says of this law, "It was added because of 
transgressions till the seed should come to whom the 
promise was made." . . "Is the law then against the 
promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a 
law given which could have given life, verily righteous- 
ness should hav^ been by the law. But the scripture 
hath concluded crZ/ under sin; that the promise by faith 
of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. 
But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut 
up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 
Wherefo^^e the law was our schoolmaster to bring us 
unto Christ, that we might be justified by [the] faith. 
But after that faith ts come, ive are no longer binder a school- 
master' d. Such is the apostle Paul's explanation of the 
purjjose, and duration, of the law given to Israel, (that law 
including the decalogue), and, therefore, the seventh-day 
Sabbath. 

Again: The law given to Israel, including the deca- 
logue, is called "the covenant," and "the words of the 
covenant." Further: "And the Lord said unto Moses, 
Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words 
I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And 

b Acts 7: 3S, 53. c Deut. 5: 22. d Gal. 3: l9-2o. 



36 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; 
he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he 
wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant^ the ten 
commandments ' d. ' 'And if ye shall despise my statutes, 
or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not 
do all my commandments, but that ye break my cove- 
nant.'" Here we learn that ''the covenant" included all 
the commandments, the statutes and judgment. The 
tables of stone upon which were written the ten com- 
mandments, are called "the two tables of the covenant'^ 
e. And the hook wherein were written by -Moses, the 
Lord's "commandments and his statutes" and all "the 
words of this covenant," was called "the book of the 
covenant" /, as also the "book of the law;" and 
the ArJc wherein the tables of the covenant and 
the book of the covenant were deposited by the 
priests, was called "the ark of the covenant" g. To 
engage in idolatry and thus violate the second command- 
ment, was to break the covenant: "Then will they turn 
unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and 
break my covenant" h. Likewise to "covet" was a trans- 
gression of "the covenant of the Lord" i. To observe 
the passover, was to keep the covenant of the Lord' — 
"Keep the passover unto the Lord your God, as it is 
written in the book of this covenant"/ When Israel, as 
a nation, broke the covenant of the Lord as found writ- 
ten in the book of the law, God visited the iniquities of 
the fathers on the children, and this peculiar procedure, 
is based on the second commandment of the decalogue: 
^ 'Go ye, enquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, 
and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that 
is found; for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kin- 
dled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto 

d Ex. 34: 27, 28. e Dent. 9: 15. /2 KiDo:8 23: 3,21 ; 22: 8. 

g Deut. 32: 26. h Deiii. 31 : 20. i Josh. 7; 15, 21. 

i 2 Kings 23: 21. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 37 

the words of this hool\ to do according unto all that 
which is written concerning us" h. Eebellious Israel 
broke the covenant of the Lord in allowing the uncir- 
cumcised in heart and flesh to minister in the sanctuary 
at the altar /: ''And the king stood by a pillar, and 
made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the 
Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testi- 
monies and his statutes with all their heart and all their 
soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were 
written u this hook. And all the people stood to the cov- 
enant" m. To refuse to liberate the Hebrew servant, in 
the year of release, was to transgress the covenant of 
God, made with Israel when he '"brought them forth out 
of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen" n. 
While the typical features of the covenant were of great 
importance, there were other matters pertaining thereto 
that were far more important, yet these less important 
matters were part of the covenant, or law o. 

Having thus briefly summarized, under the term 
^'covenant," that we may understand what the Bible 
writers meant when referring to it: and having found 
that the first covenant included the entire law given to 
Israel, including the decalogue, with all the command- 
ments, statutes, and judgements, we can better compre- 
hend just what was superseded by *'the new covenant;" 
and we have found that those writers recog-nized the 
''covenant" and "the law" as being identical, and that it 
is a uniti/. By the law the service of G-od was regulated, 
in all its requirements, and by the law was the relations 
of society regulated, and by the law was the ministry 
constituted: 'Tor the Jaw maketh men high priests." 
Now. with these considerations fully before us, the follow- 
ing is of force: 'Tor there is verily a disannulling [abol- 

k 2 Kings 22: 13. I Ezek. 44: 6-04. m 2 Kincrs 23: 3. n Jer. U: 13. 
Hos. 6: 6, 7: Matt. 2'^: 23. 



88 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

ishing] of the commandment going before for the weak- 
ness and unprofitableness thereof. For the law made 
nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope 
did; by the which we draw nigh unto G-od"p. This 
statement of the apostle indicates a formal abrogation of 
the "first covenant" — "testament" — "the law" as a code, 
giving the reason why; — it was unprofitable; it could not, 
in so far as man's eternal welfare was concerned, "make 
him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the con- 
science.'' The old covenant (the law) was "unprofitable" 
as ei moral and spiritual code when compared with, and 
in the light of, the glorious gospel that superseded it, 
and, in that regard, rendered it useless. Hence ' 'it van- 
ished away." 

i^Heb. 7:18, 19,28. 



39 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE FIEST COVENANT WAS FAULTY. 

'Tor if that first covenant had been faultless, then 
should no place have been sought for the second. For 
findmg fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, 
saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with 
the house of Israel and with the house of Judah" q. We 
have cited evidence to show that the covenant comprised 
the entire law as a code — decalogue, rites and ceremonies 
— with whatever degree of morality attached to them; 
also that the ten commandments, when separated from 
the rest of the law, is inoperative, and absolutely use- 
less, because they lack the elements necessary to their 
execution. In this division of the subject we present 
some additional considerations illustrative of the state- 
ment above quoted, as follows: That element in the law 
representing God 'Visiting the iniquities of the fathers 
upon the children" r, and that gave rise to the proverb 
in Israel, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the 
children's teeth are set on edge," is ''found fault with," 
and at the introduction of the new covenant it ceased; 
for, "every one shall die for his own iniquity, every man 
that eatetli the sour grape, Ms teeth shall be set on edge.'* 
The occasion for using this proverb in Israel is admitted, 
(Ezek. 18: 1-3), but in "those days" of "the new cove- 
nant" they should use it no more s. Agcin: "Ye have 
heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt 
not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of 
the judgment" t. Under that law a man might hate his 

gHeb. 8:7,8. rEx.20:5. s Jer. 31 : -^9, 30. ^ .Vuitt 5: 21. 



40 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

brother, be angry with him, bring charges of vanit}^ or 
of being a fool, and yet no conviction of sin could be had 
till the act of murder or killing had been done. But 
under the new covenant this law supersedes it: ''But I say 
unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother with- 
out a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and who- 
soever shall say to his brother, Eaca, [vain fellow], shall 
be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say to 
his brother. Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell lire" u. 
Moreover, according to the requirement of the ''better 
testament," when a man so acts as to offend his brother 
in the least, his offering or service to Grod is not accept- 
able, till reconciliation is made -y. And this: "Ye have 
heard that it was said by them of old time. Thou shalt 
not commit adultery:" But as a moral ai:d spirituOil — a 
gospel — precept, its great lack is plainly seen by noticing 
closely that which annuls it and takes its place as gospel 
law, viz.: "But I say unto you. That whosoever looheth 
on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery 
with her already in his heart' ' w. Likewise the following: 
"Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an 
eye, and a tooth for a tooth." Thus "the law" allowed 
the course of human nature. A man could resist [retal- 
iate] evil, and "hate" his "enemy." It also admitted of 
revenge. Nor is anything herein to be construed to con- 
travene the letter or spirit of the decalogue, for no vio- 
lation of the law in these things can be shown by it, and 
by it they are allowable so long as it stands unrepealed 
as a law. But, under the law of Christ, we are to 
"resist not evil;" "turn the other cheek also;" "love 
your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to 
them that hate you; and pray for them that despitefully 
use you, and persecute you" x. 

By the old covenant no one was guilty of the sin of 

tt Matt. 5:23. -y verses 23, 24. w verses 26, 27. a; verses 38-44. 



THE CHKISTIAN SABBATIL 41 

murder till he had killed some one. But, under the new, 
"whoso hateth his brother is a murderer" 2/. The diffi- 
culty with the law, then, as here brought out, is, it was 
too ''iceah'^ to '"condemn siri^ in its inception in the hearty 
and it was therefore necessary for Christ to establish the 
law condemning evil in the conception of man: "For out 
of the heart proceed evil thoughts^ murders, adulteries, for- 
nications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these are 
the things which defile a man" z. 

But we notice further, that, in a gospel sense, the cov- 
enant or law contained not ''the righteousness of faith f' 
and the "Gentiles, which foUoiced not after righteous- 
ness" by doing "the works of the law," nevertheless 
attained to "the righteousness of faith" by obeying the 
gospel, while the Jews who sought after righteousness 
(or the laiv of righteousness) "by the ivories of the Za?/;," 
failed a. "The law is not of faith"— Gal. 3: 12. "But 
now the righteousness of God without the law is mani- 
fested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets" h. 

Justification to life comes not by the law; for, "by the 
deeds of the law there shall no flesli be justified in his 
sight." "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified 
by faith tvithoiit the deeds of the law." "Knowing that 
a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by 
the faith of Jesus Christ" c. "Be it known unto you 
therefore, men and brethren, that through this man 
is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by him 
all that believe are justified from all things, fro7n ichich 
ye could not he justified hy the law of Moses'' ^ d. 

Nor will the future inheritance of the Saints be 
obtained by the law, "For the promise, that he should 
be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his 
seed^ through the laiv, but through the righteousness of 

2/1 eTohn 3: 14, 15: 4: 20. « Fom. 8: 2. 3; M>ut. 15: 19. 

a Eom. 9: 3(». :J-2. h Rom. :^: •2\. c Mom. 3: 20-26; 

Gal. 2:10. dAcL8l3:3'J. 



42 THE CHKISTIAN SABBATH. 

faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is 
made void, and the promise of none effect." Again: "For 
if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: 
but God gave it to Abraham by premise" e. By a careful 
comparison of the epistle to the Romans with that to che 
Galatians, it will be seen that the same law, or covenant, 
is referred to. The identity of idea is plainly proven by 
the foregoing scriptures from the two letters quoted. 
The law commented on by Paul in Romans is admitted 
by the most zealous advocates of the seventh-day Sab- 
bath, to be the law including the decalogue, and is there- 
fore the law "received by the disposition of angels" — 
"ordained by angels." It is the law that, in the days of 
Moses "entered that the offence might abound," and that 
was given of God to Israel "four hundred and thirty 
years" after the covenant of the gospel with Abraham; 
and that was "added" to the gospel (which was offered 
to the Jews at the exodus)/, ^^till the seed should come." 
It "was the schoolmaster to bring" Israel unto Christ 
that they^ with the G-entiles, might be justified by faith. 
"But after that faith [the faith revealed — the gospel] is 
come, we are ?io longer under a sclioohnaster' g. It could 
not justify from sin; is not of faith; does not produce 
the righteousness of God, in a gospel sense; cannot con- 
stitute us inheritors in Christ, nor can it give life. But 
it worked "wrath." "For I was alive without tlie law 
once: but when the commandment came, sin revived^ and I 
died. And the commandment which was ordained to 
life, I found to be unto death" A. It is "the letter" that 
"killeth;" "the ministration of death, written and 
engraven in stones" i. 

In using the phrases ^'commandment,'' and ''the law," 
interchangably, when referring to the law in the 

«Rom.4:13, 14; Gal. 3:18. /Heb.4:2. 5- Kom. 5 : 1-2-30 ; 
Gal. 3: 17-25. A Tom. 7: U, 10. i2Cor. 3:6, 7. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 43^ 

foregoing statement, Paul is but following divine 
precedent. The term ''commandment" is used to 
comprehend all the laio given to Israel j. Peter calls 
"the way of righteousness" . . "the holy command- 
mentf and he is evidently referring to the gospel in all 
its comprehensiveness h. And with this additional fact 
before us, as we study the contrast between the law and 
the gospel, "the word spoken by angels," and the "great 
salvation" which "began to be spoken by the Lord," is 
graphically set forth by the writer of the letter to the 
Hebrews in this inspired statement: "For there is verily 
a disannulling of the commandment going before, for the 
weakness and unprofitableness thereof. For the lam 
made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better 
hope did, by which we draw nigh to G-od. " This enforces, 
with all the power of an inspirational declaration, the 
abolishment of the law^ and doubly convinces us of its 
abrogation, relegating it to the domain of civil govern- 
ments, where the penalties for its violation may still be, 
and are, administered, so far as the elements that it 
possessed relating to civil matters are concerned; (1 
Tim. 1:9). And the gospel, as a code of moral and 
regenerative principles and religious guidance, as, "the 
law of the Lord [that] is perfect converting the soid^'' takes 
its place. For, "In that he saith, A new covenant, he 
hath made the first old. Now that which decay eth and 
waxeth old is ready to vanish away" I. 

Lest I be thought somewhat harsh in this exhibit of 
"fault" found with the decalogue, I quote the following^ 
statements found in "Thoughts on the Revelation," by 
Elder U. Smith, third edition, a work approved by 
Seventh-Day Adventists generally. It reads: "The first 
three commandments mention the word God; but we 
cannot tell from these who is meant; for there are multi-- 

jEx. 25: 522; 34:32. A: 2 Petci 2: 21. i Ueb. 7: 18; 8: 13. 



44 THE OH'KISTIAN SABBATH. 

tudes of objects to which this term is applied. There are 
'gods many and lords many,' as the apostle says in 
1 Corinthians 8: 5. Passing over the fourth command- 
ment for the time being, the fifth contains the words 
Xiord and G-od, but does not define them; and the remain- 
ing five precepts do not contain the name of G-od at all. 
Now what shall be done? With that portion of the law 
which we have examined, it would be impossible to con- 
vict the grossest idolater of sin. The worshiper of 
images could say, This idol is my god, his name is God, 
and these are his precepts. The worshiper of the heav- 
enly bodies could also say. The sun is my God, and I 
worship him according to this law. Thus, without the 
fourth commandment, the decalogue is null and void so 
far as it pertains to enforcing the worship of the true 
God" m. The above is stronger, perhaps, than any 
imperfection we have noted in the decalogue, and is an 
admission that nine out of the ten commandments, are 
''null and void so far as it pertains to enforcing the 
worship of the true God" is concerned. But, when the 
fourth commandment is included with the nine, does the 
decalogue then "enforce the worship of the true God"? 
The first two commandments prohibit bowing to or ivoi^- 
shiping idols, but do not enjoin worship at all. The fourth 
commandment enjoins the keeping of the seventh day of 
the week "holy," but it contains not one word as to 
what it is, or hoio "to keep it holy," except in one regard, 
and that is, "in it thou shalt not do any loork.'' It does 
not enjoin or define any manner of worship whatsoever, 
unless the suspension of all action be "holy," and is wor- 
ship to God. The decalogue, including the fourth com- 
mandment, does not enjoin prayer, assembling for song 
or preaching service, says not a word about giving alms, 
does not once mention charity, contains not the remotest 

m p. 160. 



THE CHKISTIAN SABBATH. 45 

hint about rewards for right doing, either in this world 
or that to come, or punishments either. But why pro- 
long this examination of the decalogue? 

God chose Israel as a nation, and for a purpose. That 
purpose could not be accomplished through them as a 
nation without law — a law suited to their condition as a 
nation among nations on the earth. That law was the 
law given to them at Sinai, in all its entirety. The destiny 
designed of G-od in them under the law, was attained at 
the coming of the Messiah, through whom God gave the 
gospel through which ^^life and immortality" is "brought 
to light." And the destiny that G-od designed in the 
nation having been accomplished, the end obtained, the 
law that was ordained and suited to the peculiar condi- 
tion of Israel and designed to bring about the desired 
end being now no longer of use, as a code, reached an 
end and passed away. And so the Savior when he came 
announced: "Think not that I am come to destroy the 
law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, hut to ful- 
fill.'' "The law," as here treated of by the Savior, 
includes the regulation on divorcement, and also the 
statutes on justice — "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for 
a tooth" — as the connection shows n. Jesus came to fid- 
fill that law, even all of it, and the prophets too. The 
word "fulfill" applies to the law just in the same sense 
in which it applies to the prophets. It is admitted that 
Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial department or division of 
the law, in the sense of completing it, and therefore abol- 
ished it, brought it to an end. A part of Jesus' mission 
then, was to bring the law to an end, as a religious code, 
and establish the gospel. If the word "fulfill" as applied 
to the ceremonial law means "to complete; to bring to a 
close, end, finish," as defined by Webster, G-reenfield and 
others, could the same word, used by the same speaker 

n Matt. 5: 17,31,38. 



46 THE CFIEISTIAN SABBATH. 

(not in the same connection merely, hut at one and tlie 
same time) mean something else when used respecting the 
other portions of the same law? 

When slavery, as an institution in the United States, 
was abolished, of necessit}^ all laws then existing and 
designed to regulate it, were ever after useless and ful- 
filled. So it was with the Israelitish institution. Jesus 
came to bring the ''commonwealth" of Israel to an end, 
and of course the law that governed that commonwealth 
was no longer of use. But while Jesus taught the dis- 
ciples that he came to fulfill the law, he also taught that 
''it is easier for heaven and earth to pass," than "one 
little of the law to fail" o, 'Hill all he fuifilledy This 
latter statement of our Savior shows that he understood 
that all the law would, in the future from the opening of 
his ministry, "be fulfilled," completed, ended, its pur- 
pose being served. So when the work was done he said: 
"These are the words which I spake imto you, while I 
v^as yet with you, that all thingr must be fulfilled, which 
were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, 
and in the Psalms, concerning me" p. At the cross, then, 
was the law given to Moses fulfilled, giving way to the 
"perfect law," the "law of liberty," the "better hope," 
the "better covenant," that was ^'hased on better prom- 
ises." "For he is our peace, who hath made both [Jew 
and G-entile] one, and hath broken down the middle wall 
of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the 
enmity, even the law of commandments contained in 
ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, 
so making peace; and that he might reconcile both unto 
God in one body \)y the cross, having slain the enmity 
thereby"^. "The law of comm.andments contained in 
ordinances" that is here said to be abolished, is. in the 
Hebrew letter, thus referred to: "Then, verily, the first 

Luke 16: 17. p Luke '^4: 44. g Eph 2: 14-16. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 47 

covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a 
worldly sanctuary" r. In that sanctuary was the arl:, in 
which was ''the tables of the covenant." But, by all 
that appertained to that first covenant, the sanctuary 
and all that was therein, ''the way into the holiest" 
according to the gospel, "was not made manifest while 
the first tabernacle was yet standing," hence the service 
was only "imposed on them until the time of reformation^''' 
then "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that 
was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it 
out of the way, nailing it to his cross; and, having 
spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of 
them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man 
therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect 
to an holy day, or of the new moon, or the sabbath days; 
which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of 
Christ" s. By the iphrase ^'handier iting of ordinances," 
Paul speaks quite peculiarly. He does not here say "the 
law of ordinances," or "commandments." Some special 
authority must be referred to as attaching to this "hand- 
writing of ordinances;" and after careful consideration 
of the matter I have concluded that reference is here 
made to the law, not only as copied by Moses and others 
after him, but to the authority belonging to it by virtue 
of having been originally loritten by the hand of G-od, or 
his angel, thus: "And the tables were the work of God, 
and the writing was the ivriting of God, graven upon the 
tables" t. "And the statutes, and the ordinances, and 
the law, and the commandment, which he wrote for you, ye 
shall observe to do forever more; and ye shall not 
fear other gods" it. "And the Lord said unto Moses, 
Come up to me into the mount, and be there; and I will 
give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments 

r Eeb. 9: 1, 8-10. s Col. 2: 14-17. < Ex. 34: 16. u 2 Kings IT; 37. 



48 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

which / have written; that thou mayest teach them" v. 
By these texts we learn that God wrote ^ 'a law and com- 
mandments^'' also "the statutes, and the ordinances^'' for 
Israel. And, surely, no one would controvert the fact 
that these, all together, constitute "the handwriting of 
ordinances," nor deny that they include "the law of 
commandments" — the ten commandments with the ^6- 
hath tl hereof. 

At the cross, then, the law, including all these stat- 
utes, ordinances, holy, days, and commandments, as a 
code of religious law, was "annulled," "fulfilled," "bro- 
ken down," "taken out of the way," "abolished," "blot- 
ted out," "nailed to the cross," "cast out," and Christ 
became "the end of the law for righteousness to them that 
believe" iv. 

As long as the law was in force, not only our Sav- 
ior, but the prophets also, enjoined the most strict 
observance of all its rites, ceremonies, ordinances and 
commandments. This no one who believes that the 
Bible contains the word of the Lord questions in the 
least. A few examples are here cited. Moses says: 
"Ye shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your G-od 
hath commanded you, that ye may live" x. Isaiah 
exhorts Israel to keep the Sabbath holy that their "burnt 
offerings" at the altar, and "their sacrifices," may be 
acceptable to Grod, and they be fed "with the heritage of 
Jacob" their father y. For the disobedience of Israel, 
Jeremiah denounced against them "a?^ the words of this 
covenant, vfhich" G-od commanded them to do, "but the}' 
did them not" 2. When Israel had ^forgotten the law of 
their God,'' and failed to keep it as he designed, pervert- 
ing the '^holy offerings" ordained of God a, he said he 
would forget her children, and "also cause all her mirth 

»Ex.24:12. wllom.l0:4. a;Deut.5:32. y Isa. 56: 1-6; 

58:13,14. aJer. 11:8. a 2 Chron. 35: 13. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 49 

to cease, her feast days, her new mcons, and her salhaths, 
and all her solemn feasts'^ h. 

On this subject Isaiah addresses Israel touching th?Ir 
apostasy and the ultimate cessation of the requirements 
of the law given of God to them: ''Hear the word of the 
Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the laiv of your 
God, ye people of Gommorrah. To what purpose is the 
multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I 
am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed 
beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of 
lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before 
me, who hath required this at your hands, to tread my 
courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an 
abomination also unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, 
the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is 
iniquity, even your solemn meeting'' c. 

It is well to notice that both Hosea and Isaiah connect 
the ordinances, and the Sabbaths here referred to, with 
''the law of your God," when thus addressing Israel; and 
by reference to the book of Leviticus c7, we discover that 
"the feasts" which Israel were to "proclaim to be holy 
convocations," to be '^the feasts of the Lord,'' were, first, 
"the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convo- 
cation;" second, "the Lord's passover," on "the four- 
teenth day of the first month," followed by "seven days" 
of unleavened bread, including two first-day sabbaths, 
and an offering daily of beasts; third, the "statute" of 
the offering of the first fruits of harvest; fourth, Pente- 
cost, with all attendant offerings; fifth, the "memorial'^ 
of "trumpets," the first day of the seventh month; sixth,, 
atonement day; and seventh, the feast of tabernacles. 
And '^beside the sahhaths of the Lord," the seven days har- 
vest-feast. Thus we see the Lord includes the seventh- 

b Ho8. 2: 11 ; 4: 6. c lea. i : 10-13. d Lev. chapter 23. 



50 THE CHEISTIAN SAi^BATH. 

day Sabbath, and its offerings, in the list that he inspired 
the prophets to predict would cease. 

Paul says they ceased at the cross. The same power 
or authority that ordained the law, had the right to 
abrogate it. But so long as the law was binding on 
Israel, Malachi, with the other prophets, exhorted them 
to "Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I 
commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the 
statutes and judgments" e. So also did Christ/. And 
while it is a fact that Jesus observed the law, to the com- 
pletion of it, he also taught and exemplified the higher 
law — the gospel — which included and retained all the moral 
and religious elements found in ' ^the law, ' ' and these were 
generally found in that higher law, on which hung all 
the law and the prophets. That this is true, is seen by 
the comparison of what he taught his disciples as his law, 
with ''the law," as in Matthew chapter five, and Luke 
chapter six, etc. His law made the hatred of a brother 
^'murder;" fasting to be seen of men "hypocrisy;" "covet- 
ousness,'' to be ' 'idolatry;'' and a lustful look, "adultery." 
To love ones "neighbor" only, made one no better than 
other "sinners." His law forbids profanity. The deca- 
logue does not. His law makes the 'thoughts''' of evil 
doing, sin. The one is the law of coercion; the gospel 
is the LAW OF LOVE and incentive — love to God and man. 
"The goodness of God'' leadeth to right doing, and "think- 
eth no evil." Christ, the Redeemer, having come to 
usher into effect the law of the reign of peace, "the law 
of faith," of righteousness and truth and grace, in fulfill- 
ment of the promises made to the faithful long before the 
times of the law g, accomplished the work assigned him. 
He was the second Adam — "last Adam." In Adam the 
first, the head of the natural race, under "the law," "all 
died.^* In "the last Adam," the representative head of 

«MaJ. 4:4. /Mat. 5: 19; 8:4; Luke 5: 14; 23: r, 8. ^ John 8: 56. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 51 

the regenerated race — under his law all are to be made 
alive h. The law of "grace and truth" having been intro- 
duced, established and ratified by the Savior's death and 
glorious resurrection, and by his death ^^tJie ministration 
of death ^ written and engraven in stones," having been 
"slain" i, it is thence that, after the cross, the law is no 
Tiiore enjoined. 

The new covenant being established, and embracing 
"the law of the spirit of life," those who avail themselves 
of the high and holy privileges of that divine institution 
are no longer bound by the terms of the old covenant, 
are no longer under obligation to observe the letter of the 
law, as a religious guide, ' 'But now we are delivered, from 
the law, that being dead [slain] wherein we were held; 
that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the 
oldness of the letter" y. And hence it is that Paul 
affirms the ministry of "the new testament," were not 
constituted ministers of "the letter," a "slain," a VcZeacZ" 
law! A law that while in force killed onl}^ — "the letter 
Mlleth." "But our sufficiency is of God; who also hath 
made us able ministers of the new testament" k. 

By the resurrection of Christ, and the establishment 
of the new covenant, all who accept Christ as the Savior, 
are begotten to the hope of living again, in endless glory, 
A kingdom of "righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy 
C-host," "a spiritual house," "a chosen generation, a 
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people," "to 
offer up spiritual sacrifices" to God, and "acceptable to 
Jesus Christ," was established, "to the intent that now 
iinto the principalities and poicers in heavenly places might 
he knoivn hy the church the manifold wisdom of God." 
Because that "^Ae laio having a shadow of good things to 
come, and not the very image of the things, can never 

/i John 1: 4: Rora.5: 17-19: 1 Cor. 15: 45, 46. t2Cor3:7; 
Eph. 2:15, 16. j Rom. 7: H. fc 2 Cor 3 : 6, 7. 



52 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

with those sacrifices which they offered year by year 
continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For 
then would they not have ceased to he offered ? . . . because 
that the worshipers once purged should have had no 
more conscience of sin" J. ^ 'Above when he said, Sacri- 
fice and offering and burnt offerings and offerings for sin 
thou wouldst not, neither hadst pleasure therein, which 
are offered hy the law.'' Hereby we learn that it was "the 
law" that cast the ''shadow" of "good things to come," 
and that the "offerings for sin" were "by the law." 
When the substance or "body," the gospel is reached, the 
types or shadow are no longer of use. And because the 
law could not, in part or in whole, "take away sins," but 
only memorialize it, God had no "pleasure therein," and 
therefore annulled it. The shadow will remain as long 
as the law casting it remains binding. Please remember 
that "the law" here referred to is "the first testament" 
and '^the first covenant" of the previous chapter of the 
letter to the Hebrews; and the covenant, as we have 
already learned, has for its basis the ten commandments. 
Moreover, it is assumed that the decalogue is the 
supreme, unchangeable, eternal law of G-od, and, that 
the ceremonial law was the law "added because of trans- 
gression till the seed should come to whom the promise 
was made," and that it was done away by Christ, leaving 
the decalogue still of force, and that therefore the Sab- 
bath of the fourth commandment is now binding. So 
far as "burnt offerings" and attendant ceremonies are 
concerned, are not the intimations of the Bible more 
favorable to the idea that they existed before the deca- 
logue was formulated at Sinai? All the patriarchs who 
lived prior to the exodus, so far as history shows, offered 
typical sacrifices, beginning with Abel. And further; 
if the ceremonial law is "the law" that "entered, that 

j"Heb. 10:1, 2,8. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 53 

the offence might abound," as stated in Romans, chapter 
five, it is the law that is afterward, in the same letter, 
said by Paul to be designed to cause sin to ^'become 
exceeding sinful,^ ^ and also the law that is holy, just and 
good! k. That law by which comes ''the knowledge of 
sin;" that law, of which Paul further argues, ''Yea, we 
establish the law" I. But this position could not be 
admitted for a moment by the seventh-day Sabbath 
advocate, for by so doing he admits that the law con- 
taining the Sabbath is abolished. But such is the log- 
ical deduction from their chosen premise. The fact is, 
their attempt to divide the law by that line of reasoning 
is solely an assumption, and the attempt to prove the 
perpetuity of the decalogue thereby fails. That the 
apostle Paul does refer to the same law in the Roman 
letter he does in that to the Galatians is evident, for he 
quotes the same text in both epistles thus: "For Moses 
describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the 
man that doeth those things shall live in them" m. "And 
the Jaw is not of faith, but, the man that doeth them 
shall live in them. "71. Can the same word "law" 
found in the same text, when used by the same 
writer, on two different occasions be construed to 
signify that two distinct laws are meant? More 
than this, when the prophet Ezekiel reproved the 
children of Israel for not observing that same law 
referred to by Moses and Paul, he included not only the 
"statutes" and the "judgments," but the Lord's '^sab- 
bath'' alsoo. Thus does the testimony of Ezekiel and 
Paul concur in applying the statement of Moses to "^Ae 
laic'' as a ichole^ statutes, judgments, and that which the 
Lord calls "my sabbaths." And the Holy Ghost was 
the inspirer of all three. 

k Rom. 5: 20: 7: 12, 13. I chap. 3: 31. m Rom. 10: 5. 
n Gal. 3:12; Lev. 18 : 5. Ezekiel 20 : 21. 



54 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

Of the law thus identified as including the Lord's Sab- 
baths, Paul says to those in the new covenant, ''For ye 
are not under the law, but under grace." What then? 
Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under 
grace? God forbid"^. And why? Answer^ — "Where- 
fore, my brethren, ye are hecome dead to the law hy the 
hody of Christy that ye should he married to another^ even 
to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring 
iovili fruit unto God.'' 

i>Rom. 6: 14, 15; 7:4. 



65 



CHAPTER YII. 

THE WEEKLY SABBATH. 

It is denied that Paul referred to the weekly Sabbath 
when affirming the "blotting out the handwriting of 
ordinances." because it is classed with the meats and 
drinks and ''the new moons," etc. But in doing this the 
apostle but follows the precedents of the prophets and 
authorized teachers of the law, as the following references 
conclusively show. Moses, through whom the law was 
given, so classes the Sabbath of the law, as we have 
seen q\ "And he said. Wherefore wilt thou go to him to- 
day? it is neither neio moon, nor sahhatli' r, Solomon 
says, "And for the burnt offerings morning and evening, 
on the sabbaths, and on the neio moons, and on the solemn 
feasts of the Lord our G-od. This is an ordinance forever 
to Israel" s. "And to offer all burnt sacrifices unto the 
Lord in the sabbaths, in the new moons, and ON the set 
feasts" f. Here "the set feasts" include every legal 
Sabbath except the weekly Sabbath, and hence "the sab- 
baths" of the text are the weekly Sabbaths. For the 
writer to say "the sabbaths," meaning the annual Sab- 
bath, and then in the same breath to use the phrase "set 
feasts" with reference to the same days, would be a 
species of tautology hardly chargeable to an inspired 
historian, unless the one was used as an expletive of the 
other. Such is not the case here. But further: "Even 
after a certain rate every day, offering according to the 
commandment of Moses, on the sabbaths, and on the 
new moons, and on the solemn feasts, three times in the 

q LbV. 23: 3, 5, 16, etc. r 2 Kid ^8 4: 23. s 2 Chron. 2: 4. 
tl Chron. 23: 31. 

55 



56 THE CHRISTIAN SA1315ATH. 

year, even in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the 
feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles" u. "And 
the burnt offerings for the sabbaths, and for the new 
moons, and for the set feasts, as it is written in the law 
of the Lord" v. The distinction between the weekly Sab- 
baths, and the set or solemn feasts — annual Sabbath — is 
by these texts plainly indicated, yet . these writers, like 
the apostle Paul, associate the weekly Sabbaths with the 
new moons, and set feasts. 

The prophet Amos attaches the same degree of sacred- 
ness to the new moon as he does to the Sabbath, saying, 
"When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell 
corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat" lo. 
Likewise Isaiah, placing it with the Sabbath among the 
memorials of the age to come: ' 'And it shall come to pass, 
that from one new moon to another, and from one sab- 
bath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before 
me, saith the Lord" x. And so the apostle, in the Col- 
ossian letter, following the foregoing examples, associ- 
ates the weekly Sabbaths of "the law of the Lord" with 
the other holy days, ''new moons,'' meats and drinks, 
affirming that all these were blotted ouc, "took it out of 
the way, nailing it to his cross," because it "was against 
us," and "contrary to us" y. 

In what respect was the law "against," and "contrary 
to us?" It was national^ enacted especially for the nation 
brought out of Egypt, "out of the house of bondage," 
and more especially was the decalogue so designed z. 
Being national, it was a civil— ecclesiastical law. This 
no one will deny. In its very nature and intention it 
could apply to no other people, seeing no other nation 
was so brought out of Egyptian bondage. It is the 
"title" of any given law, or code of law, that determines 

w^Chron. 8:13. -y 2 Chron. 31 : 3. w Amos 8: 5. ajisa. 66:23. 
y Col. 2: 14-17. « Ex 20: 2: Deul. 5: 6, 15. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 57 

its application. God, who brought Israel out of Egypt, 
^'out of the house of bondage," foreknew the future con- 
ditions of his chosen people and what he designed to 
accomplish through them, and so determined and suited 
his enactments for them — ''from his right hand went a 
fiery law /or ^Ae77i, . . . &w en iho^ inheritance of the congre- 
gation of JacoV h. And thus was it designated that 
Israel was the cAo5e?i people, ''above all people that" were 
"upon the face of all the earth" c. It will be well to note 
that Moses, when making this statement, was instruct- 
ing Israel with special reference to the principles of the 
decalogue against idolatry. Now, Israel being so cho- 
sen of God above all other people, were, by all the cir- 
cumstances and the peculiar law given to them, ^^sep- 
arated'' . . . "/^'•om all other people." "For thou didst 
separate them from among all the people of the earth, to 
be thine inheritance, as thou spaJcest by the hand of Moses 
thy servant, when thou broughtest our fathers out of 
Egypt, O, Lord, God" d. 

By the law given to Israel was the distinction between 
them and the Gentile world maintained, and hence it 
became necessary for Christ to nidlify the cause of this 
distinction — separation — that was created at the exodus 
and that discriminated "against" all other people, and 
thus take this ' 'middle wall of partition between us" down. 

Another respect in which the law was "against" us, 
and "contrary" to us was, that so long as it remained in 
force there could be no such thing as the forgiveness of 
sin; hence, repentance was not an element of the law. It 
was a law of absolute justice, without any intermingling 
of mercy. When a iviilful or "presumptuous" sin was 
committed, the law was inexorahle; the sinner must be 
put to death. "Because he hath despised the word of 
the Lord, and hath broken his commandment, that soul 

5Dcut. 33: 1-4. cDeut. 7:6. dl Kings 8: 53. 



58 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him" 
e. If the sinner did ''the like to any one of" the things 
contrary to the law, he was "guilty of all," his blood 
should be upon him/. "He that despised Moses' law 
died without mercy under two or three witnesses"^. 

When the nation of Israel or any individual of it sinned 
ignorantly^ the law provided a substitute — the life of a 
beast, instead of the life of the transgressor — and an 
atonement was thus made in a typical sense, or, in a 
figure. But in this there was no more of real forgiveness 
than the transfiguration of Christ upon the mountain was 
the second advent of Christ in glory — in fact. Those 
typical offerings but memorialized sin, annually, pointing 
forward to the great antitypical sacrifice to be offered 
for the race in the person of Jesus Christ, God's Son, 
"who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without 
spot to God," to ^^purge your conscience fror}i dead worhs to 
serve the living God. And for this cause he is the medi- 
ator of the new testament, that by means of death, for 
the rede77iption of the transgressions that were under the first 
testament^ they v/hich are called might receive the prom- 
ise of eternal inheritance" 7i. "But in those sacrifices 
there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. 
For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats 
should take away sin. "Wherefore when he cometh into 
the world, he saith. Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst 
not, hut a body hast thou prepared me. . . . Then said he, 
Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the 
first, that he may establish the second. By the which 
will we are sanctified through the offering of the body 
of Jesus Christ once for all" i. 

The Israelites alone were under the law. The Gentile 
nations were not placed under its rule. Under it, as we 

eNum. 15: 30, 31. /Ezek. 18: 10-18; James 2: 10. ^rHeb. 10:28. 
h Heb. 9: 14, 15. i licjb. 10: 3-5, 9, 10. 



THE CHRISTIxVN SABBATH. 5^ 

have shown, there was no future rewards. Its penalty- 
was death. It provided no remedy for sin in fact, but 
only in figure. Now it is proposed by the advocates of 
the seventh-day Sabbath to abolish that part of the law 
(the ceremonial) that provided for the substitution of the 
life of the beast for the sin of ignorance, which allowed 
the sinner the continuation of this life, and no more, and 
perpetuate the decalogue, which they affirm is perfect, 
have it incorporated into the new covenant; for by the 
new covenant, say they, or under it, G-od will write the 
ten commandments in the heart, instead of on the tables 
of stone, and thereby procure pardon for the transgres- 
sion of it. If a circle be perfect, to add anything to it 
renders it imperfect. To add anything in any way to a 
perfect dollar according to the authorized standard, ren- 
ders it useless. To add the ten comma'idments to the 
gospel would not change their effects^ unless there was a 
change in their intention by the Lawgiver. To assert 
that the ten commandments are the perfect and immu- 
table moral law of God^ and then say that their intention^ 
office, or effects, under any circumstance whatever, can he 
changed, is a glaring inconsistency, and a contradiction 
in logic. 

Now, we have seen that under the law (the law includ- 
ing the decalogue) the effects were temporal— on the one 
hand long life — on the other, no remission — but death 
^'without mercy," Therefore to combine the decalogue, 
unchanged in any respect, whatever, with the gospel,, 
will not alter its effects — reward and penalty — an iota. 
To make it of universal application is to bind its effects 
upon all nations. And, to make it a part of the new 
covenant — ''the everlasting covenant" — would be to ren- 
der its intended, effects everlasting. And "as there is no 
man that sinneth not"y, '"there is none that doeth good, 

j 1 KinfeS 8 : 46^ 



60 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

no, not one' k, but all are under sin, and ''the wages of 
sin is death;" there is therefore no salvation for anyone 
hereafter, so long therefore, as this immutable law of 
the unchangeable G-od is in force and unrepealed, death 
only awaits the race! 

^'But," say they, '"God has transferred the commis- 
sion of execution of the penalty, from men to the hands 
of the Savior, and from this age to the judgment day." 
Then the original intention of the unchangeable G-od in 
ordaining this immutable law was, that the Son should 
execute hereafter the penalty for breaking this law, and, 
that the penalty should be ''sorer'' i than is simply death 
here, at the hands of a fellow mortal. Then God varied 
just a trifle from the original intention in the establish- 
ment of the covenant with Israel at Sinai! For under it 
man executed the penalty! This position involves three 
changes. One in God, and two in his moral, perfect, ini- 
mutable law! A change on his part with respect to the 
time of executing the penalty; a change from man to his 
Son in the execution of the penalty; also a change of the 
degree of intensity of the penalty, icith the change of the 
time and agency of its execution! But to add to the pen- 
alty a "sorer punishment" than death at the hands of 
our fellows, is really a change of the penalty, and there- 
fore a further change of the law — the immutable law!! 
Such are the logical conclusions deducible from the 
grounds offered us by the seventh-day Sabbath advo- 
<3ates. 

As a constitutional basis to the commonwealth of Israel, 
in its intended place and time, it was "good," carrying 
on its bosom its just judgments, statutes and precepts, 
given of God to Israel; it was "holy" as a '"schoolmaster" 
leading Israel up to Christ and ''the narrow way;" 
-enforcing its types and shadows it was " 'spiritual." But 

k Rom. 3: 12. t Heb. 10: 29. 



THE CHRISTIAxV SABBATH. 61 

so far as providing a remedy for sin was concerned, it 
provided none; hence when the Savior came he gradu- 
ally and cautiously (among the Jews) introduced the long 
promised covenant of peace (the law of ^^ grace and trutli') 
that as gradually annulled the law (the first covenant), 
he living and dying under it. But in his death he struck 
it a fatal blow, slaying it and forever blotting it out, that 
the law wherein the remedy for sin was provided might 
be established; that, whereas sin abounded by reason of 
the Mosaic law, the law of faith and grace might much 
more abound. 



62 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE COVENANT— THE TEN COMMAND- 
MENTS. 

In order to save the ten commandments from abolition 
tcitJi the covenant that was taken away, it is strenuously 
maintained that they are not in reality a part of the cove- 
nant made icWi Israel, and written in the book; that 
while the book contained the covenant made ivitJt Israel, 
the decalogue was God's commanded covenant to Israel; 
and that, therefore, the abrogation of the ''first" cove- 
nant did not carry with it the ten commandments. We 
quote: ' 'Concerning the term 'covenant' we must express 
our surprise that any should take so limited views of the 
subject as to conclude that God's covenant commanded to 
them by his own voice, is identical with that covenant or 
agreement made icith them through Moses as the medi- 
ator"y. That this position is an assumptio7i, and opposed 
to the Bible on this point, the following from Moses, the 
mediator of the covenant, demonstrates: "And the Lord 
said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the 
tenor of these words I have made a covenant tvith thee 
and tvith Israel. . . . And he wrote upon the tables the 
words of the covenant, the ten commandments" k. "The 
Lord our God made a covenant tvith us in Horeb. The 
Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, hut with 
us, even us, who are all of ur here alive this day" I. By 
this statement Moses refers to the 2^l(^^ce where, and the 

j Signs of the Times, Editorial, Aug. 10 b, 1882, p. 351. k Ex. 34: 27, 28. 

ZDeur ': 2. 3. 
62 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 63 

^^time" when, this covenant was made, also with icliom; 
and then to show what he meant by the ''covenant" he 
proceeds to identify the decalogue with it, as an integral 
part thereof, by quoting the ten commandments at 
length and saying that this is ''the covenant" God made 
''with us:' 

Solomon thus understood this subject, for he says: 
''And I have set there a place for the ark, wherein is the 
covenant of the Lord, tcliich he made with our fathers^ when 
he brought them out of the land of Egypt" m. Was ''the 
hooh of the covenant'' in the ark, at the time of the dedi- 
cation of the temple? Yes; for "there was nothing in 
the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put 
there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the 
children of Israel, when they came out of the land of 
Egypt'" n. On the t a Dies of stone, then, was written 
"the covenant" which God ^^made icith Israel," or the 
constitutional basis of it, at least. And, as we have 
before found, to break one of these basic laws, was to 
break the covenant, or be "guilty of all." 

But the ten commandments were copied into the book 
of the covenant, with the statutes and judgments, and it 
is to the book we are indebted for the copy of them we 
now have in the Bible, and it was ^'concerning all these 
icords^' that God made a covenant with Israel. "Moses 
came and told the people all the icords of the Lord." and 
^ 'wrote cdl the icords of the Lord ^'' and called the writing 
"the book of the covenant" o. The ten commandments 
are a part of the covenant that God made with Israel at 
Sinai, therefore, and being (as is admitted) in their 
nature adapted to a government theocratic in form and 
nature, to a government at once ecclesiastical and civil, 
they as formulated at Sinai could be adapted to no other 
form of government; and so far as any other covenant, 

m 1 Kings 8: 21. n Veig.- 8. o Chapters 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24: 1-8. 



64 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

or form or nature of government is concerned, are inop- 
erative and useless. Under their operation, there is no 
^'reconciliation for iniquity;" repentance is not provided 
for; the transgressor must die "without mercy." Hence, 
to transfer the ten commandments to the gospel covenant 
would but destroy the effects of the atonement and defeat 
the purpose of God intended by the mediation of Jesus 
Christ. So we read: "Christ is become of no effect unto 
you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are 
fallen from grace" _p. "But Israel, which followed after 
the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of 
righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not 
by faith, but as it were hy the icorhs of the lata. For they 
stumbled at that stumblingstone" q. And since all are 
under sin — for "all have sinned" — and since the law says 
the sinner must die, therefore, if the law has been trans- 
ferred to the new covenant, it is, of course, a part of its 
conditions, and then the new covenant is no better than 
the old. In fact, it were but a re-enactment, or a reneival 
of the old covenant, and not a new one at all. It 
is therefore no better than before. It visits "the 
iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the 
third and fourth generation," according to its own terms 
r. In the nature of the law the promises of the renewed 
covenant are no better than before, for the basis is the 
same. And since all, both Jew and Gentile, "have 
sinned," all must irretrievably die! Moreover, if the law 
of the ten commandments, "written and engraven in 
stones," are "transferred" to "the new covenant'' andin- 
corporated thereinto, Christ and his ministry are con- 
stituted ministers of "the ministration of death." For 
the law is of no use, whatever, unless preached and ad- 
ministered, and this is a positive contradiction of what 
the apostle Paul says of the ministry of Christ and the 

p Gal. 5:4. q Rom. 9: 32. r Ex 20: 5. 



THE CimrSTIAN SABBATH. 65 

nature of their services. And thus the gospel — ''new 
covenant," and ''the spirit" — is bearing along in its 
bosom the law that works wrath, ''the ministration of 
death, written and engraven in stones," but now "trans- 
ferred" and written "in the hearts" of all who embrace 
the new covenant; for when the commandment 
comes "sin" revives, and, as all are sinners, all 6.1Q. A 
transfer of the law does not change the nature of it. It 
simply places the law in a position and relation where it 
can eternally magnify sin and destroy the sinner! As 
sin was only atoned for typically^ under "the ministra- 
tion of death" so mediation was typical. And to consti- 
tute it a cardinal element in the new covenant would be 
to exalt it to a position where it {so reen forced) could 
nullify all the mediation of Christ in fact. Hence Paul 
denies that the ministry of the new covenant are consti- 
tuted ministers of "the letter" — the law that "killeth" — 
'^the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones.^' 
^^That which is done away' — ^^aholished'' — has for its ante- 
cedents, "the ministration of condemnation" "the minis- 
tration of death, written and engraven in stones," even 
the ten commandments, which were the base, life and 
force^ of the law of the commonwealth of Israel. And it 
follows that, as long as the cause of that "glory," or 
"glorious" ministration, continues to operate, the effect — 
the "glory" — remains. And if it becomes a part of the 
better covenant, even the "glory" abides and increases^ 
instead of being "abolished"! t, 

DECALOGUE NOT TRANSFERRED TO THE NEW 
COVENANT. 

From the foregoing considerations we conclude that 
the decalogue is not transferred to the new covenant, 
nor from the tables of stone to the hearts of the Saints, 

s2Cor. 3:6, 7. t2 Cor. 3:7. 

5 



66 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

But that ''in Chi'ist" the ''vail is done away," so that al 
in him can see "^o the end of tJmt ivJiich is ahoh'shedf car 
see that "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness tc 
every one that believeth," and are able to see plainl} 
that Paul shows there is a marked distinction betweer 
'"the righteousness which is o/the law,"' and "the right- 
ecnisness which is of faith." The one speaks of this life 
only, while the other speaks of the life to come through 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead u; also 
that by obedience to the law of faith they ''eonelude- 
with Paul "that a man is justified by faith icithout thi 
deeds of the Jaw' v. And further; those in Christ are 
able to see that, since the law and the prophets '^wit- 
nessed-' to the righteousness of God through the gospel 
without the deeds of the law; and, as Christ came in 
fulfillment of their witness or testimony, that testimony 
is established as being divine. In his argument on Christ's 
coming in fulfillment, and as being the end of the law, 
Paul says, "Yea, we establish the law" w. In his argu- 
ment with the Jews in demonstrating that Jesus came, 
by the evidence of the law he proves its truthfulness and 
its divinit3^ It is only in this sense that Paul could 
"establish the law," just as any other minister would 
establish the truth of any prophecy, or evidence, by 
exhibiting the fact testified to. 

Paul, an apostle inspired of God, would not pres^ime to 
"establish" the law, in the sense of ordaining and caus- 
ing it to go into effect, authoritatively, especially if the 
claim that the law was established by God before the 
foundation of the world be true! 

THE NEW COVENANT. 

Our Savior when on earth offered the gospel (the new 
covenant) to the house of Judah, but as a '"house" they 

u Rom. 10: 4, 5, G. v Rom. 3: .^8. w Rom. 3: 31. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 67 

rejected it x. But God is yet to make a covenant in'th 
both "the house of Israel and the house of Judah." and 
it will be when the two houses become a parti/ to the 
covenant. Paul places this in the future from his day ^, 
at the fullness of the G-entile times. Jesus says. '•Jeru- 
salem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the 
times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" z. Jerusalem and the 
Holy Land are not yet fully delivered from the power of 
the Grentiles, but the time is surely near at hand when 
God's covenant will be sent "out of Zion." to all Israel, 
and uns^odliness be turned awav from Jacob, and their 
sins be taken away to be remembered no more. The 
"new covenant" is to be made with that same Israel and 
Judah whose fathers God brought out of Egypt, and it is 
not to be like the covenant made with their fathers, for 
God's "law of the Spirit of life" is to be written in their 
hearts, and as a result they are to ''knoic" God. "from 
the least of them to the oTeatest of them." Then their 
sins will be forgiven in fact, a, and as a final result the 
'"two houses" of Israel will be united into one kingdom, 
no more to be divided. For this covenant, is to "be an 
everlastinof" oneh. At that time God "will ^ive them 
one heart, and one icai/." nor shall they after depart from 
God c. And let us be assured of this one thing, at the 
time this "everlasting covenant" is made with Israel, 
the law of the former covenant will form no part or ele- 
ment of it. for thus testifies the word of the Lord, saying, 
"Turn. O. backsliding children, saith the Lord: for I am 
married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and 
two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion; and I will 
give unto you pastors according to mine heart, which 
shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. And 

arJn. 1:11; Matt. i^S: 3t)-:^.9: Eom P: 31, 3:2. y Re m. 11 : :>5--37. 

z Luke 21 : 24. a J er. 31 : 31-34. b Ezk. 37 : 21-26. 

c Jer. 32: 39,40. 



68 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased 
in the land, in tJiose days, saith the Lord, they shall say no 
more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord; neither shall it 
come into mind; neither shall they rememember it, neither 
shall they visit it, neither shall that be done any more. 
At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the 
Lord: and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to 
the name of the 'Lord, to Jerusalem; neither shall they 
walk any more after the imagination of their evil 
heart" d. 

The pastors herein promised will not be teachers of 
the seventh-day Sabbath. They could not advocate it 
and not have the ark ''come into mind," nor ''remember 
it not." This prophecy could not have been fulfilled at 
any time prior to the first advent of Christ, for the law 
preserved in "the ark of the covenant of the Lord" was 
then the governing law, and the ark was had in continual 
remembrance for that reason. In ancient Israel "the 
ark of the covenant of the Lord" was considered to be 
the symbol of G-od's presence and power, an emblem of 
the strength and glory of Israel e. But such is not the 
case under the new covenant, for Christ and his law — 
the everlasting covenant — are the embodiment of the 
power and glory of the Christian Institution. 

We notice one more text cited to support the assump- 
tion that the law, and therefore the Sabbath, is yet in 
force and binding on all men. On one occasion during the 
ministry of Christ, as he and the disciples passed through 
the cornfields on the Sabbath day, the disciples "began 
to pluck the ears of corn," and the Pharisees objected, 
charging that such an act was "not lawful." The Savior 
justified the act of the disciples by citing the unlawful 
act of David when he, having "nee^^," did eat "the shew- 
bread," and gave of it to his associates, "which is not 

d Jer. 3: 14-17. _ ePs. 78: 56-63; 1 Sam. 5: 21. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 69 

lawful to eat but for the priests." The Lord then pro- 
ceeds to teach the Pharisees that the necessities of man, 
in certain exigencies, were superior to keeping the letter 
of the Sabbath law, and that the Sabbath itself was 
intended of God to subserve the interests of those for 
whom made, and not that the interests of the Sabbath 
were to be subserved by those to whom given, to their 
disadvantage: ''And he said unto them, The sabbath was 
made for man, and not man for the sabbath. Therefore 
the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath"/. Hereby 
we learn that Christ, as Lord, is superior to the Sabbath 
fjso. 

THE CEREMONIAL LAW. 

The ceremonial service, in its requirements, seems 
to have had the precedence as compared with the Sab- 
bath; and so Jesus cites the rite of circumcision being 
performed on the Sabbath, that the law requiring 
it to be observed the eighth day might be kept g, 
saying, ''Or have ye not read in the law, how that on 
the Sabbath days the priests in the temple profane [put 
to a wrong use; pollute] the sabbath, and are blame- 
less f h. The priests worked diligently all day during 
the sabbath, slaughtering and dressing animals for the 
sacrifices, and offering them, thus profaning the sev- 
enth-day. The Sabbath, under the law, seems to have 
been specially devoted to ceremonial exercises and the 
celebration of "ordinances." Two lambs were killed, 
dressed and offered; meat and drink offerings were made 
also. "This is the burnt offering of every sabbath" i. 
And this was ordained "an ordinance forever to Israel" j; 
and in Ezekiel it is specified that seven beasts were to be 
slain, prepared and offered by the priests on the Sabbath, 
at the door of the tabernacle, with the prince and the 

/Mark 2: 23-28. g Jho. 7: 23; Lev. 12: 3. h Matt. 12: 5. 
t Num. 28: 9, 10. i2Chron. 2:4. 



70 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

congregation participating h. This array of rites observed 
on the Sabbath surely entitles it to a prominent position 
in ''the handwriting of ordinances" that was nailed to 
the cross. The Sabbath was a regular theatre ''of com- 
mandments contained in ordinances." Just strip the 
seventh day of all the regulations, ceremonies, observ- 
ances and rites that characterized it, as provided for it in 
the ceremonial law, and what have we left of it as it 
stands in the decalogue? An unconditional injmiction — a 
positive one — to suspend all exercise sinks into a condi- 
tion of absolute rest both man and beast, without an 
incentive to move, or to encourage its observance; not a 
promised blessing for obedience to it relating either to 
this life or that to come; not a penalty for its violation. 
Jesus did not charge the Jews with sin for seeking to 
preserve the life of animals when endangered on the 
Sabbath day. Animal life, when endangered, seems to 
have been of more importance than the letter of the Sab- 
bath law /. Would not Sabbatarians of to-day do as 
much under like circumstances? Would they not labor 
during the Sabbath in the emergencies of flood or fire to 
save their goods from destruction? With themselves 
and Jesus as the judges, the mere letter of the Sabbath 
law is not a matter of the highest importance. From all 
these considerations we draw the lesson that the Sab- 
bath is not of greater importance than man for whom it 
was made, as modern Sabbatarians, by their assump- 
tions, falsely teach. 

MAN — THE HUMAN RACE. 

But it is tugged that, b}^ the use of the term "man," as 
used in its unrestricted sense, all the race is intended, 
and that, therefore, the Sabbath was made for all men 
(and domestic beasts of burden, I suppose), and the fol- 
lowing rule from Barrett' s Principles of English Grammar 
k Ezjk:. 46: 3-6. I Mate. 1-2: 11. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 71 

is applied to the text, — '^A noun without an adjective is 
invariably taken in its broadest extension, as, Man is 
accountable" m. 

This is not an ^Hnvarlahle rule, however high the 
authority, especially when applied to Bible usage, and 
the following examples will sustain us: When revealing 
his intention to bring a flood upon the world "the Lord 
said: I will destroy man whom I have created from the 
face of the earth"??. If this statement includes all the 
race^ who will be saved? Again: "And the Lord God 
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into 
his nostrils the breath of life" o. Are all men, therefore, 
thus directly created by divine agency and supplied with 
life miraculously? We cite one more passage which 
applied to the people addressed by our Savior in the 
text under consideration, and in which the term ''man' 
is evidently used in the same sense. It reads: ''Man 
did eat angels' food; he sent them meat to the fuH"_p. 
In this text the term "man" is confined to Israel in the 
wilderness. 

THE SABBATH — PART OF THE LAW GIVEN 
BY MOSES. 

And when we examine the subject of the Sabbath, 
how that it was first given to the children of Israel, in 
and hy command^ and then only after the Exodus and in 
connection with law given to them after the gospel had 
been preached to them and by them rejected, thus trans- 
gressing, and that the Sabbath was a part of the law 
"added because of" that "transgression" q "till the seed 
should come" in whom all nations were to be blessed; 
and that the Sabbath was given them as a memorial of 
their deliverance from the servitude of Egypt by the 

m Hist, of the Sab , J. N. Andrews, p. 22. w Gen. 6: 7. o Gen. 2: 7. 
p Ps. 78 : 25. q Heb. 4:2; Gal. 3 : 19 ; Deut. 5 : 22. 



I'l THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

miraculous power of Glod r, also in consideration of the 
fact that the Sabbath of the law was a '^sign" and "a 
perpetual covenant" between God and the children of 
Israel '^throughout their generation" — a "sign" to them 
that Grod had sr."^tified — separated them — from all other 
nations to be his people s; and, further, the fact that God 
did not enjoin the observance of the Sabbath on any 
other people than Israel, at any time, so far as the Bible 
shows, and, seeing that the gospel law does not enjoin 
it, we are led to the conclusion that Israel was "the 
man" /o7^ whom "the sabbath was made," as he was the 
"man" that "did eat angels' food." 

THE SABBATH, OF NATIONAL LAW. 

In this connection let us carefully note the fact that 
the law of which the seventh-day Sabbath was a part, 
was a national law, politico-ecclesiastical in nature; special 
in its character and application, applied to specially cho- 
sen people of God, and constituted a government by the 
law of a two-fold nature, in which the ecclesiastical ele- 
ment of the church was dominant. Israel was a nation 
among nations. God gave the laws and supplied or 
appointed the administrators. God chose no nation as 
he did Israel "since the day that God created man." He 
dealt wondrously with them, manifesting himself to 
them in a most marvelous manner, and ordained a 
special law, suited to their peculiar needs and circum- 
stances, and adapted to the peculiar end he had in view t. 
That we are correct in the conclusion here reached is 
plainly manifested by the Lord's preamble and title to his 
unprecedented and momentous act of giving the law to 
Israel. It reads: ^^And God spake all these words, saying^ 
I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of 

rDeut.5:15. s Deut. 7: 16; Ezek. 20: 11, 12, 21. < Deut. 4: 31-40. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 73 

the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" u. This 
is God's title to the law there and then given. God gave 
it to Israel, and for Israel. The Sabbath is a part of it. 
It was given to, and made for, those who had been 
brought out of the house of bondage in Egypt by the 
direct agency, supervision and marvelous display of 
God's power and glory. Now unless it can be shown 
that God has taken that law as there ordained, formu- 
lated and applied to Israel under their peculiar circum- 
stances in that dispensation as a politico-ecclesiasticism, 
and appropriated that same law to some other people 
and to a similar government, for us to do so is to act 
without authorit}^, and to handle ''the word of God 
deceitfully." Inspiration thus, in after times, specified 
the intention and purpose of God in ordaining and giv- 
ing the law including the Sabbath: ''Thou camest down 
also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from 
heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, 
and good statutes and commandments; and madest 
known unto tliein thy holy sabbath, and commandedst tliem 
precepts, statutes, and laws by the hand of Moses thy 
servant" z;. Doubtless Moses had as good understanding 
of the import, spirit, inl-antion, and specific application 
of the law, in all its bearings, as any man that has ever 
written on the subject, he being its mediator, and its 
expounder, also being inspired by the Spirit of wisdom 
of Him who ordained and gave the law. 

WHEN, WHY, AND TO WHOM THE SABBATH 
WAS GIVEN. 

Now, as to icJien^ icTiy^ and to whom, the Sabbath was 
enjoined, also as to icJiy God enjoined it, he wrote: 
*'And remember that tlioii tcast a servant in the land of 
Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out 

wEx. 20:1, 2. uNeh. 9; 13, 14. 



74 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out 
arm; tJierefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep 
the sabbath day" w. 

Surely, the foregoing is sufficient evidence to show 
most fully the Savior's intent and meaning when he says 
^'the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the 
sabbath." It was /or Israel and to Israel. 

w Deut. 5 J 15. 



75 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE WEEKLY REST DAY UNDER 
THE GOSPEL. 

Having taken a summary view of the seventh-day 
Sabbath and its relation to the covenant made with 
Israel at mount Sinai, also the reasons why the Sabbath 
was given to them, and, having discovered that the 
^'covenant," and "law," of which it was a part and '^a 
sign;" was designed for Israel for a specific purpose; 
was temporary; was imperfect (as compared with the 
gospel); was faulty, and that its purpose culminated with, 
the coming of Christ and the establishment of the ''bet- 
ter covenant" that was based on "better promises" and 
by which life and immortality is brought to light, we 
now turn our attention to the appointed weekly rest 
day to be observed by those who enter into covenant 
relationship with God through Jesus Christ, who is the 
mediator of the new and everlasting covenant, and 
engage to observe its requirements of service and wor- 
ship. 

That a weekly day of rest from secular avocations was 
appointed to be devoted to worship and reverence to God, 
in the capacity of an assembly^ is implied in the state- 
ments of our Savior, when he says: "And if he shall neg- 
lect to hear thee, tell it unto the church; but if he neg- 
lect to hear the church," etc.; also; "For where two or 
three are gathered together in my name, there am I in 
the midst of them" x; as also a place luhere the assembly 

a; Matt. 18: 17,20. 

75 



76 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

was convened, is evident. James, addressing the Saints, 
says: ^'For if there come into your assembly," etc. y. 

Paul enjoins this among other ^'good works," ''Not 
forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the 
manner of some is; but exhorting one another; and so 
much the more as ye see the day approaching," indicat- 
ing that to ' 'willfully" refuse to assemble to worship was to 
sin against the blood of the covenant, and that punish- 
ment awaits those who so transgress z. But what day 
of the week was appointed for the disciples of Christ to 
assemble for worship under the new covenant? A new 
"leaven" and a new "lump;" the "new wine" and the 
"new cloth," could not be put into old "meal," "old bot- 
tles," or the old "garment." In other words, the gospel 
system being perfect of itself, as the plan of redemption, 
could not with safety be joined to any of the then exist- 
ing laws or systems of worship, not even the law 
excepted. To join two systems of law together, one of 
which in its nature cannot justify man under any circum- 
stance, while by the other he may be, is to have them 
work "contrary, the one to the other," like the woman 
married to two husbands without being divorced from 
either a. Jesus, having been born "under the law, to 
redeem those who tcere [not are'] under the law," consist- 
ently observed the day required by the law, till its ful- 
fillment at his death^ as he did the other requirements of 
the law, such as circumcision, offerings, the passover, as 
also the feast days. But after this most wondrous and 
glorious event, his triumph over death and hell &, he 
having conquered this and tlie unseen ivorld, and having 
performed the grand, central miracle of the ages, mak- 
ing it the hasis of the hope of the inhabitants of both 
worlds and around which cluster the glory of all the dis- 

y James 2: 2. ^Ueb. 10:25 26. a Matt 9:16,17; Rom. 7: 1-3, 10; 
Gal. 5: 17. 6 Rev. 1 : 18. 



THE CHEISTIAN SABBATH. 77 

pensations of divine grace; and having slain (broken) the 
power of all systems of law (as religious codes) that could 
not justify the imprisoned and bound sinner c, thus 
becoming the representative head of the new creation, 
the head of ''the church of the first born," the ''general 
assembly" c?, he thereby rendered the day of Ms resurrec- 
tion (the first day of the week) ever memorable to all who 
trust in Him! 

By His mission into this world, and to the world of 
condemned spirits, he became "both Lord and Christ," 
even "Lord of all" e. But after that exhibition of "God 
manifest in the flesh," Jesus met no more with his fol- 
lowers to worship on the seventh day, so far as the 
record shows, but he did meet with them on that day 
wherein all heaven was joyful with praises because the 
redemption of man was secured — "the first day of the 
week/' which by the common consent of the church, was 
recognized as "the Lord's day"/. God had "determined" 
the time "before appointed" for the resurrection of his 
Son, namely, "the third day" from the day of his cruci- 
fixion, "according to the scriptures;" hence he was "the 
first born from the dead" into the incorruptible life, 
^Hliatiii all tilings he might have the preeminence.^^ 

The Scriptures that the Spirit of inspiration applied to 
the "third day" from the crucifixion — "the first day of 
the week," known to the Gentile world as "Sunday" — 
reads thus: "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten 
thee" g. Jesus often referred to his rejection by the 
Jews and Gentiles, his death, and his triumphant resur- 
rection "on the third day," or ^ 'after three days," indicat- 
ing that he well understood what ' 'the determinate coun- 
sel and foreknowledge of God" had purposed to bring to 

c Rom. 3: 19. 20. cfEph.lrlO. e Ezek. 32: -21 ; 26: 20; :t2: 22, 3^3; 

Rom 14: 9; 1 Pet. 4;'o, 6; Acts 10: 36; Eph. 4: 9. 

/ Rev. 1 : 10. g Acts 13 : 33 ; Heb .5:5. 



78 THE CHKiSTIAN SABBATH. 

pass in '^the times before appointed" h. Since, then, 
David, Peter and Paul have applied the word of the 
Lord to this day, the day of the resurrection of our glo- 
rious Lord, no marvel that the apostle John, that disci- 
ple "whom Jesus loved," should call that day "the Lord's 
day." 

We have now discovered the fact that the first day of 
the week, our Lord's resurrection day, is specially 
referred to and designated in the Scriptures in connec- 
tion with the establishment of the new covenant. God 
pointed out and devoted that day to the resurrection, 
receiving then the "first fruits" — his Son — "from the 
dead." And fifty da3^s from that day, on the day of Pen- 
tecost, which was also "the first day of the week," dur- 
ing "a holy convocation" of the saints, was the antityp- 
ical "wave offering" of the "first fruits" of the gospel 
harv3st offered to the Lord. And the evidence of the 
acceptance of the "offering" to G-od was the ringing of 
the antitypical bells on the robe of our "great High 
Priest" — the endowment of the saints with the baptism 
:and gifts of the Holy Ghost i, thus further rendering the 
first day of the week ever memorable to the church. 

It was on the evening of "the first day of the week," the 
same day of our Savior's resurrection, that he met with 
his disciples to confirm the fact to them of his being 
raised to life/ And on the next "first day" Jesus met 
with the assembled disciples again, in further confirma- 
tion of his triumphant resurrection from the dead, and 
to instruct them regarding the endowment of the Holy 
Spirit and their work of che ministry in carrying the 
gospel of life to the nations h. 

"But," says the seventh-day advocate, "this second 
meeting was ^after eight days' from the first meeting. 

A Mark 8: 33; 9:30; Acts 2: 23. i Lev. 23: 15, 16, 21: Ex 28: 35; 
Acts 2 : 1, 33, 36. j Jno. 20 : 19, 20. k verses ^6-29. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 79 

That would bring that meetino- later along than the next 
Sunday — perhaps Monday or Tuesday!" 

Let us see. 1. "Destroy this temple, and in three days 
I will raise it up" I, 2. ''And be raised again the third, 
dayy 3. ^^ And after three days rise again." Here are 
three forms of expression in which the time elapsing 
from the death to the resurrection of Christ is expressed. 
But because the form of expression used by the 
Savior himself is, ''after three days," may we contend 
that Jesus did not rise from the dead till the second or 
third, instead of the first day of the week! Paul, the 
great apostle to the Gentiles, was taught the gospel by 
revelation from Jesus Christ, and according to the gos- 
pel he taught that Jesus ' 'rose again the third day accord- 
ing to the scriptures,'' as much so as he affirms that "Christ 
died for our sins according to the scriptures." By the 
Scriptures, then, the third day from the death of Christ 
was noted, pointed out, and by the Father determined. 
It was set apart as the day when the world should be 
begotten "to the hope of living again" m. Before the 
conclusion of that "same day" Jesus met with his dis- 
ciples to demonstrate the fact of the resurrection, bestow 
on them the divine blessing, give instructions concern- 
ing when to begin, and how; also as to the universal 
extent of their great and divine mission; also to open 
their understanding and expound the Scriptures to 
them 71. That was one of the most important confer- 
ences recorded of Jesus and his disciples — one wherein 
he expounded "the things pertaining to the kingdom." 
— Acts 1: 3. And notwithstanding he could have after- 
ward renewed the "custom" of convening on the seventh 
day, yet he did not, but waited till the next "first day of 

Z Jno. 2:19; M'l't 16: 21; Mark 8: 31. m 1 Pet. 1 : 3. w Luke 
24: 33-48; Jno. 20: 19-25; Acts 1 : 3, 4. 



80 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

the week," and then held another service with the dis- 
ciples. 

Passing by the day of Pentecost, and leaving these 
examples of our Lord holding religious services on ''the 
first day of the week" after his resurrection, we next 
notice Paul's instructions and injunction to the churches 
among the G-entiles: ''Now concerning the collection for 
the saints, as I have given order to the churches of 
Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week 
let every one of you lay by him in store, as God has 
prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I 
come" o. 

In the Church of Christ, charity and benevolence are 
to be cultivated as religious duties. The poor amono; 
the Saints, as well as the families of the ministry, are to 
be aided by the church. In order to accomplish the 
greatest amount of good to the satisfaction of all con- 
cerned, some regulation is to be established of a general 
character so that concert of action may be had on the 
part of the entire body. A general treasury is neces- 
sary. The contributions of each individual must in some 
way reach that treasury. The apostle, recognizing the 
sacredness of this duty of devoting of their means to 
the cause of Christ, enjoins on the members of the church 
to observe this among their religious duties when assem- 
bled for worship, "upon the first day of the week." 
Hence each one, on preparing to assemble to worship, 
should devote of his or her means, to be placed in the 
treasury of the assumbly, and the reason assigned by 
Paul for all this regulation is, ^ 'that there be no gather- 
ings [collections] when I come." 

Concerning this passage, some argue that its entire 
strength is found in the phrase, ^'lay hy him,'' meaning, 
they say, "let each one put a portion of his earnings 

ol Cor. 16: 1,2. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 81 

aside on the first day of the week, at Tiome^^^ and, of 
course, keep it "at home" 'Vith one's self," ''near him- 
self," till Paul should arrive at Corinth, and the other 
churches, when he would proceed to gather it together! 
But this would necessitate collections at each church after 
his arrival! Yet one strong Sabbath advocate asserts of 
that phrase, "They ordain precisely the reverse of a pub- 
lic collection" p. That is, Paul arranged with the 
churches for a general "collection" to be taken for the 
poor Saints, and to be collected hefore his arrival among 
them, "that there be no gatherings^ [collections] iclien I 
come^^^ and yet afterward when writing further instruc- 
tion concerning the matter speaks in such a manner as 
to defeat the very object he had in view! A "collection," 
a gathering of means, is the object had in view by the 
apostle. When and hoio to accomplish it is the question. 
He did not desire the "gathering" to be deferred till his 
arrival, and hence he gave "order to the churches'' to do 
^^on the first day of the weeh'^ just what he did not wish 
them to wait to do till he came — gather their bounties 
together. An agent going around from house to house 
"on the first day of the week" in order to gather their 
bounties, that there might be "no gatherings" when he 
came, would just as much interfere with the members of 
the church, keeping that which he devoted to the cause 
"by him.," as to go to the public assembly "on the first 
day of the week" and put it into the treasury himself. 
Paul desired "the collection' to be made prior to his 
arrival among them that none be taken after he came; 
therefore he "gave order to the churches," to do this 
duty on the day of their assembling for worship — "the 
first day of the week." 

Pau^-, as an apostle of the church, was a public charac- 
ter and officer. The church was a public institution in 

p Hist, of j>ab., J. N. Andrews, p. 176. 

6 



82 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

the world — the light of the world. Paul received the gos- 
pel by revelation from Jesus Christ q. On him fell the 
care of the G-entile churches for a time, as their repre- 
sentative minister r. As such he spoke to them ' 'by the 
word of the Lord" s, and by ''the revelation" of God to 
him, even the "counsel of God" ^. And since Paul in 
the letter and subject before us is giving "the churches,'' 
as such, directions relating to their duties in church 
cr.pacity, and more particularly with regard to their pub- 
lic services, as, for instance, he says, "If therefore the 
whole church be come together into one place, and all 
speak in tongues," etc. ; and, "Let all things be done unto 
edifying;" again, "Let the prophets speak two or three^ 
and let the others judge;" and, "Let all things be done 
decently and in order;" and then, in order to correct the 
mistaken views of some among them touching the doc- 
trine of the resurrection, he introduces his famous argu- 
ment, telling such he spoke "to their shame," he con- 
cludes the argument for the time and then resumes his 
instructions to "the churches" respecting the question 
of public duty, "the collection for the saints" to be car- 
ried out "on the first day of the week" as "order" had 
been given to the churches. The words, therefore, "let 
every one of you lay by him in store," do "ordain" "a 
public collection," and show that it was an ordinance of 
God. This "public collection" as ordered "on the first 
day of the week," and the assembly for religious duty 
and worship, is apparent when it is remembered that 
Paul's "preaching," was "in demonstration of the Spirit 
and- power," that their "faith should not stand in the 
wisdom of men, but in the power of God" tt, and that he 
was ''not without law to God," also that he wished them 

g Gal. 1:12. r 2 Cor. 11:28. s 1 These. 4: 15; 1 Cor. 14: 36. 
t2Uor. 16: 1; Acts20: 27. it 1 Cor. 2: 4, 5; 9: 21. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 83 

to he folJoirers of Mm as he was of Christ r, and Christ 
worshiped with his disciples ''on the first day of the 
week." He further says, ''For I have received of the 
Lord that icJiich also I delivered unto you" lo. And this, 
^'For I delivered unto you first of all tlmt ichich I also 
received, how that Christ died for our sins according to 
the scriptures, . . . and that he rose again the third day ^ 
according to the scriptures'" x. And, lastly, regarding the 
instructions given the Corinthians^ "If any man think 
himself to be di x>^ophet^ or spiritual^ let him acknowledge 
that the things that I write unto you, are the command- 
ments of Grod'' y. Either God instructed Paul to give 
this matter in charge to the churches, or he taught them 
to violate the requirements of God, or Paul was deluded. 
It is objected that Christ, prior to the crucifixion, gave 
no commandm.ent to the disciples to assemble for the 
worship of God on the first day of the week, and that 
since the covenant was then ratified, nothing could be 
added to it after that time. To this we reply that, this 
objection might be of weight provided it could be shown 
that the record we have in the Bible contained all he said 
and did up to that time. T^e have no account of Jesus 
calling into offices in the church prophets, elders, bish- 
ops, teachers or deacons, prior to his crucifixion, nor 
did he enjoin upon his apostles the duty of going "into 
all the world" to publish the gospel among the nations 
prior to his death. We are not aware of any intimation 
in the Bible anywhere, that all that he intended them to 
know of his "will" was to be revealed prior to the death 
of Christ. On the contrary, he had many things to say 
to them, but they were not able to bear them during his 
ministry, personally on earth z. He did, however, before 
his passion, lay the foundation of the kingdom of heaven^ 

V 1 Cor. 11 : 1. w v. 23. x chap. 15, ts. 3, 4. y chap. 14, v. 37. 
«Jno 21:25; 16:12. 



84 THE CHKISTIAN SABBATH. 

set in order in it two of the leading classes of officers, 
apostles and seventy, made provision for carrying on 
the work after he should leave by promising to send ''the 
Comforter," . . . ''the Holy Ghost" — the advocate of his 
cause (human redemption), explained its office-work as 
being to guide his servants into truth, bring his past 
sayings to their remembrance, direct them in their 
official duties, aid them to follow his example, and show 
them, things to come. He also gave them divine "author- 
ity" or power, "keys" to properly represent the inter- 
ests of his kingdom in his absence, saying that whatso- 
ever they should loose or bind on earth (harmoniously 
with his will) should be loosed or bound in heaven; also 
saying, "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I 
you" a; and, "He that receiveth whomsoever I send 
receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him 
that sent me" h. This was their authority to represent 
Christ and his Father, in their official work in the inter- 
ests of the church by their teaching, administering, and 
their example to the world. Christ and his angels stood 
by these ministers in their official labors. They preached 
the gospel, baptized and confirmed believers, organized 
them into local churches, set them in order, ordained 
their officers, and assembled together "on the first day 
of the week" "to break bread" or partake of "the Lord's 
supper," preach, pray, and take up collections to sustain 
the cause c. Jesus set the example for meeting for wor- 
ship "on the first day of the week." He says he did 
always those things that pleased his Father d. Can we 
ask for higher aiitliority or example than that of Jesus 
and the apostles for "first-day" service! Did G-od accept 
of their labors when thus ordaining, baptizing, confirm- 
ing, etc. ? Yes. Did he acknowledge their assembling "on 

a John 20: 21. fc John 13 : -20. c Acts 20: 7; 1 Cor. 11; 16: 1, 2. 
d John 8: 29. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 85 

the first day of the week" to worship? Yes; God mani- 
fested his pleasure at one such meeting by hearing tlie 
prayers of his saints in behalf of the young man that fell 
out of the window, blessing Mm and comforting the saints. 
In connection with the foregoing facts relating to the 
divine authority of Christ and his apostles, also the 
worth and power of their example and precepts relating to 
our religious duties, the next evidence that we adduce 
in favor of the assembling together of those who come 
into the new covenant, ^'on the first day of the week," to 
worship God, will have great weight. Paul and sev n 
others of the ministry were on their way to Jerusalem 
from a tour throu.gh some of the Roman provinces, 
preaching by the way. Luke says of this: ''These going 
before tarried for us at Troas. And we sailed away from 
Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came 
unto them to Troas in fi.Ye days; where we abode seven 
days. And upon the first day of the week, when tie 
disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached 
unto them, ready to depart on the morrow, and con- 
tinued his speech until midnight. And there were many 
lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered 
together" d. Luke here records the incidental history of 
this visit of Paul and the accompanying elders at Troas, 
The leading and most prominent events, or, rather, inci- 
dents, are given. They left Philippi ''after the days of un- 
leavened bread," and were '^f^YQ days" on the journey to 
Troas. They abode at Troas "seven days," notwithstand- 
ing Paul's haste to arrive at Jerusalem at Pentecost, then 
less than thirty days in the future. A "sabbath" 
occurred during their stay at Troas, but no mention is 
made of either it or a meeting for worship being held by 
any body at Troas on that day. But it is mentioned, 
incidentally, that "on the first day of the iceeh^ when the 

d Acts 20: 5-8. 



86 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

disciples came together to break bread" (celebrate the Lord's 
supper, ''on the Lord's day"), "Paul preached unto them^ 
ready to depart on the morrow" — Monday. It is also 
related that they "gathered together" in an "upper 
chamber," and that the meeting was an unusually long 
one, Paul speaking till midnight, even the ^'lights' being 
mentioned. Either there were no Jews with their syna- 
gague in Troas, or else Paul did not feel it expedient to 
meet with them on that occasion. For it had been Paul's 
"custom" to get into the Jewish synagogues on every Sab- 
bath, if possible, to "reason" with them relative to the 
gospel e. It is not stated in this narrative that the dis- 
ciples ' 'gathered together' ' to worship on the seventh 
day, nor could it be thought at all likely that they would 
be allowed to meet in the Jews' synagogue to worship^ 
even on the Sabbath day. The Jews were the hottest 
persecutors the disciples of Christ met with in those 
days. Luke does not refer to this "first-day" meeting 
at Troas as though it was exceptional, but simply as a mat- 
ter of common custom, and of weekly occurrence. He 
never failed to mention the fact when Paul happened to 
preach to the Jews on the seventh day, or to Jews and 
Gentiles included/, even frequently stating the number 
of times he did so in any given place. And if at any 
time Paul convened a special meeting of brethren, this 
faithful chronicler never failed to mention it g. While 
this is all true, we have no record of a single meeting or 
assembly for worship of Paul with the disciples on the 
seventh day. This is peculiar, but then we remember 
that when Paul was at Jerusalem, the apostle James and 
others urged him to observe 'Hhe laiv' as a matter of 
policy among the Jewish converts. But they said, "As 
touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written 

e Acts IV: 1, Z. fActs 11 :26; 13: 5> 15, 42; 17: 2; 18:4. 
g Acts 20: IT. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 87 

and concluded that they observe no such thing. ''^ Paul was 
not successful at that time in keeping the law, however, 
and had to abandon it h. The conclusion to be reached 
from a careful study of the text before us must be, that 
Luke refers to the usual custom of gathering ''together 
to break bread" and enofasfe in other reliofious services 
*'on the first day of the week." 

.Eaalizing the force of this example of this apostolic 
church, with one of the chief of the apostles of our Lord 
at its head, assembling for divine worship ''on the first 
day of the week," when, with a number of the leading 
ministry present, they could have assembled on the sev- 
enth day (but did not), Seventh-day Sabbath advocates 
have assumed that this meeting was held on Saturday 
evening^ instead of ^Hhe first day of the iceelx'' as the Bible 
affirms. And of course they try to prove that Luke, who 
w^as present at the meeting, was m.istaken! And if they 
succeed in their eifort to invalidate this testimony of 
Luke, Paul traveled nineteen miles to Assos "on the 
first day of the week" instead of meeting with the saints 
at Troas and continuing the service till midnight, and 
till break of day "on the morrow." This objection 
assumes that the disciples began the day at sunset, as 
under the law regarding the Sabbath. But of this there 
is no proof. Luke, the writer, was a learned Roman 
citizen, subject to Roman law and customs, and even the 
Jews had been subject to these laws and customs for 
about ninety years when Luke wrote the Acts (a. d. 60), 
and then there is no evidence that the church at Troas 
"came together at night," or even in the evening. It 
might have been in the afternoon, but certainly it was 
during the day. This is Bible usage. Night is never in 
the Bible called day. Early morning is called "day" ^^ 
*^And God called the light day and the darkness he called 
h Acte 21 : 15-25. i Acts 16 : 35 ; Lake 24 : 1. 



88 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

night'' j. Thus did God, and inspiration has ever so 
recognized since. Jesus "continued all night in prayer 
to God" k. '^ Jesus answered, Are there not twelve 
hours in a day?" The night was never called day; there- 
fore if the disciples at Troas did not meet ''on the Jirst 
t7a?/ of the weak," they met on the seventh! For they 
did not come together during the night. It is not an un- 
usual thing for assemblies to meet during the day and 
continue them during the evening. The disciples never 
expected to hear Paul preach again. He did not antic- 
ipate ever meeting with those brethren at Troas again 
in this life, hence he continued the service "till break 
of day," and then departed. 

The mention of "the lights" simply goes to show 
that their usual place of meeting to worship was con- 
veniently arranged for services, and that it was the cus- 
tomary place of assembling. 'Paul preached unto them 
ready to depart on the morrow." Assembling to wor- 
ship "on the first day of the week," would "the morrow" 
be the same d^^y? That to-day is to-morrow, is a false- 
hood, a direct contradiction in terms. But this is just 
what the seventh-day theorists make out of it. Contend- 
ing that as the disciples at Troas met on Sunday, Paul 
did not wait until the morrow to depart, he really left 
Troas "on the first day of the week" and went to Assos! 
But the record says, "The disciples came together" . . . 
^^u-pon the Jir St day of the week" . . . "to bieak bread, 
and Paul preached unto them ready to depart on the mor- 
row" — the second day — Monday, and all the assumptions 
imaginable cannot show to the contrary. I^et Sabba- 
tarians try such logic on these texts: "The sixth day 

they gathered twice as much bread To-morrow is 

the rest of the holy sabbath" L "EehoM ilf day groweth 

jeen. 1:5; 19:2; 24:55; 32 13-20. .A; Luke 6: 12; 21:37. 
I Ex. 16 : 22, 23. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 89 

to an end; lodge here, that thine heart may be merry; 
and to-morrow get jou early on your way, . . . but the 
man would not tarry that night' m. 

The Romans began the day at midnight, and the New 
Testament writers wrote accordingly. After midnight 
they never refer to the succeeding hours of light as "the 
morrow," but as the day then current, thus: ''And in 
the morning, rising up a great while before day'' n. At 
the Savior's arrest, from the time the cock crew, it is 
stated, "And as soon as it was day." The Jews indi- 
cated the hours of twelve to three a.m. by the phrase 
''cock crowing" o. Being imprisoned at Philippi, "Paul 
and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto Grod" ... "at 
midnight," and being released preached to the jailer and 
household and baptized them before daylight — "''and 
ichen it teas day' (not "on the morrow"), is the phrase- 
ology used p. 

When referring to the succeeding hours of light, at 
any given time ijrior to midnight, the phrase, "the mor- 
row," or "to-m.orrow," is used by the New Testament 
writers, as indicated of the meeting at Troas. Also in 
the case of Paul's escape from Jerusalem through the 
intervention of "the chief captain," who started the 
guard with Paul "a^ the third hour of the night'" to go to 
Cesarea. But at Antipatris the infantry returned to the 
castle, leaving the cavalry to proceed "on the morrow" 
with Paul to his destination q. Referring thus to the 
following day as "the morrow," when speaking of it at 
any hour before midnight, and as the day current, after ^ 
demonstrates that "the morrow," from "the first day of 
the week" could be none other than Monday, and that 
the evening meeting at Troas, following the assembling 
of the disciples on "they^rs/^ day of the iceeh^'' was on Sun- 

m Judges 19: 9, 10. n Mark 1: 35; Luke 22: 61-66. o Mark 13: 35. 
p Acts 16 : 35. q_ Acts 23 : 23, 32. 



90 TliE CHRISTIAN SABBITH. 

day evening, and shows conclusively that Luke recog- 
nized that the day ended and began at midnight, as John 
did: '^Then the same day at evening, being the first day 
of the week" r. Thus we see every item of this narrative 
goes to show that the meeting of Paul and the elders 
with the disciples at Troas to worship, expound the 
word, exhort, partake of "the Lord's supper," was on 
"the first da}^ of the week" and not on the seventh, as 
some assume. 

r Jno. 20: 19. 



91 



CHAPTER X. 

'^THE LORD'S DAY"— THE FIRST DAY OF 
THE WEEK. 

The Christian economy is an institution at the head of 
which stands our Lord s. His is the church and king- 
dom ^. He is ^- the head over all things to the church" 2^. 
^'Both Lord and Christ" v. In his name all divine law is 
to be administered among men. He is the one mediator 
and ransom for the whole world lo. At his name every 
knee in earth, under the earth and in heaven shall bow, 
and every tongue confess that he is Lord x. He is 
''Christ the Lord," "Lord of all," "Lord of glory" i/. 
Jesus is officially the Lord of the dispensation of the 
world's redemption. Hence we read of "the disciples of 
the Lord," "the brethren of our Lord," "this cup of the 
Lord," "blood of the Lord," "the law of the Lord," (Ps. 
19: 7), "of Christ" 2;, and "the commandments of the 
Lord." "For ye know what commandments we gave 
unto you by the Lord Jesus" a. An_l all the Saints are 
required to "stand fast in the Lord" h. 

But in all this dispensation of our Lord, is there no 
day commemorative of our Lord's resurrection from the 
dead, that event and act that is, in fact, the basis of the 
world's hope beyond the grave! There was a day com- 
memorative of the redemption of Israel from Egyptian 

s Matt. 28: 18, 19 t Matt. 16: IS; C )1. 1 : 13. u Sph. 1 : iri. 

vAci62:86. w 1 Tim. 2: ^ 6; 1 John 2: 2. x 2 Phil. ^^: 10, 11. ' 

2/ Luke 2: 11. « Gal. 6:2. alThess. 4:2. 

61 lUe8;i. 3: 8; Act «^ 10.33; 1 Cor. 2; 8. 

91 



92 THE CHEiSTIAN SABBATH. 

bondage, and of the acts of God in then redeeming them. 
But where in ^'the new covenant" is the memorial of the 
act of God and our Lord giving the pledge of our redemp- 
tion from the dominion of death! Is there no ' 'Lord's 
day" essentially distinct and marked in ^^the law of 
Christ" — "of liberty!" Answer: ''I, John, who also am 
your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the 
kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle 
that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the 
testimony of Jesus Christ. / ivas in the Spirit on the 
Lord's day^ and heard behind me a great vo^ce, as of a 
trumpet" c. The fact that such a wondrous measure 
of the Holy Spirit rested on the apostle John as to give 
him a vision of the seven churches of Asia, while yet on 
the lonely isle, and of the spiritual condition of their 
membership, and of the Son of God personified v/alking 
in the midst of the churches, and of having the Son 
reveal himself to him as "the first and the last," and 
being commanded to write his revelation and send it to 
the churches, impressed him so powerfully that he fell at 
the Savior's feet as dead. He was also impressed that 
the time of seeing this wonderful manifestation of the 
love of Christ to him was "the Lord's day." Here, then, 
is the inspiration of God designating the memorial day of 
the resurrection of Christ given through the resur- 
rected One! The seal of divinity is thus placed upon 
that day — "the first day of the week." The day of 
Christ's resurrection is "the Lord's day." But does "the 
Lord's day," as referred to by the Holy Spirit to John, 
signify "the first day of the week"? We know of no 
instance either in the Bible or in history where the 
phraseology, "the Lord's day," is used with respect to 
the Jewish Sabbath — the seventh-day Sabbath. All his- 
tory teaches that "the Lord's day" of Revelation is "the 

c Rev. 1 : 9, 10. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 93 

first da}^ of the week," the eighth from the day of our 
Lord's glorious resurrection. This, the strongest of 
Sabbatarians concede, that the Holy Spirit, through 
John, uses a new form of expresssion, with reference to 
the Christian's rest day — ''the Lord's day." But when 
we reflect for a moment that it was designed to mem.o- 
rialize one of the greatest events conceivable toman, and 
also itself an institution connected inseparably with the 
establishment of the Christian covenant, it is not strange 
that terms designed to meet the ends sought should be 
composed, legitimately growing out of the nature af the 
institution and the attendant events. As, for instance, 
^'Independence day," "New Year's day," relating to the 
opening of a new era; also "Emancipation day," etc. 
Events of importance connected with the establishment 
of the Israelitish economy were mem^orialized on certain 
days designated by titles then neiv, as, "the Sabbath 
day," day of "atonement," "pentecost," etc. So in the 
gospel economy, the unparalleled event and fact of the 
resurrection of Christ, the great Head and Lord of the 
plan of human redemption, was celebrated on the newly 
named resurrection day — "the Lord's day." Of this Dr. 
Barnes in his commentary says: "This was a day par- 
ticularly devoted to the Lord Jesus, for that is the 
natural meaning of the word Lord as used in the New 
Testament; and if the Jewish Sabbath was intended 
to be designated, the word Sabbath would have been 
used." 

In his New Testament Grammar Prof. Winner says: 
"Entirely new words and phrases were constructed, 
mainly by composition, and for the most part to meet 
some sensible want" d. But why construct "new words 
and phrases" to designate old institutions as "the sab- 
bath"? No "sensible end" could have been reached in 

d p. 25. 



•94 TFIE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

this manner, relating to the Sabbath of the law. But 
the phrase, ''the Lord's day," is essentially a Neiv Testa- 
ment formation. 

Of their usage of words, Liddell and Scott, in their 
lexicon say: "We have always sought to give the earli- 
est authority for its use first. Then if no change was 
introduced by later writers, we have left it with the 
early authority alone" e. And hence when they come to 
define the Greek term "Kuriakos," it is ''Of, belonging 
to, concerning a lord or master, especially belonging to 
the Lord Christ; hence kuriake hemera, the Lord's day." 
The New Testament, then, was their earliest authority 
for this usage, and no authority since had required any 
change. 

Greenfield defines the derivative "Kuriakos, of, or 
pertaining to the Lord, that is the Messiah: the Lord's, 1 
Cor. 11: 20; Rev. 1: 10." And Rolison's lexicon, thus: 
"Kuriakos — Pertaining to the Lord, to the Lord Jesus 
Christ; e. ^., kiiriaJws deipnon, — the Lord's supper, (1 
Cor. 11: 20), kuriake Jiemera^ the Lord's day (Rev. 1: 10)." 

Bagster's Analytical Greek Lexicon, thus: "Kuriakos 
— Pertaininr^ to the Lord Jesus Christ; the Lord (1 Cor. 
11:20; Rev.^1: 10)." 

Parkhurst says: "This is the usual name of Sunday 
with the subsequent Greek fathers." 

The above learned evidences show most conclusively 
that the Lord's day was a new institution, and pertained 
to the gospel in the Apostolic Age, and is identical with 
"the first day of the week" — Sunday. We do not find 
the phrase "the Lord's day" once used, in all the Bible, 
in application to the seventh-day Sabbath. 

The new relations connected with the institution of the 
"kingdom of heaven" would necessitate the use of terms 
and phrases suited to its heavenly and peculiar charac- 

fl Preface p. 20. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 95 

ter, and of such a nature as to convey to all its close 
relation to its preeminent Head, our Lord. Hence the 
institution itself, is called ''the Lord's body"/- 

The holy communion is designated ''the Lord's supper," 
and, "the Lord's table" ^r. The observance . of "the 
Lord's supper" commemorates "the Lord's death" Ji. 
And as the baptism with which our Lord was to be bap- 
tized involved the idea of not only being buried or hid 
away out of sight, but also the act of rising again from 
that condition, "the Lord's supper" was observed on 
"the Lord's day" — the resurrection day^ "the first day 
of the week." No one will contend that "the Lord's 
supper" is any other than a purely gospel institution. 

Since "the Lord's day" is first found in the New Testa- 
ment institution and ever after associated with the wor- 
ship of Christ, because of the glory attendant upon his 
triumphal victory over death, could it be made to appear 
as any other than the day celebrated as Christ's resur- 
rection day? The foregoing ought to be decisive in 
relation to this division of the subject. 

/I Cor. 12:^^7, ?2S; 11:29. i? 1 Cor. 10; 21; 11: 20. 7i v. 27. 



y(> 



CHAPTER XL 

HISTOEICAL IDENTITY OF ''THE FIRST 
DAY" WITH 'THE LORD'S DAY." 

Leaving, now, the consideration of the testimony of 
the lexicographers and commentators, we will notice, 
briefly, some of the Mstorical testhnony to the identity of 
^HJie Lord's day^ of Revelation ivith 'Uhe first day of the 
week' \ of Paid s divinely inspired instructions to ^Hhe churches 
of Christ.'' Our statements under this head are taken 
from writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers^ also a work — 
''a collection of ecclesiastical statements" — called, ^^The 
Apostolic Constitutions,^' with other accredited historical 
data. 

^'The Ante-Nicene Fathers are those Christian writers 
who flourished after the time of the apostles, and before 
the Council of Nice, a. d., 325." In a little work by 
Elder Andrews, (Adventist), entitled, The Complete 
Testimony of the First Three Centuries, in his History of 
the Sabbath, page 204, ^^Introductory Statement" he 
remarks: "Many of the Fathers call the first day of the 
week the Lord's day." Also: "For those Fathers who 
hallow the Sabbath do generally associate with if the 
festival called by them the Lord's day"y. Here is the 
confession of one of the ablest of modern Sabbath advo- 
cates, with "The Complete Testimony of the Fathers" 
before him, that the seventh-day Sabbath and the Lord's 
day are 7iot identical, but that "many of" them "call the 
first day of the week the Lord's day," thus admitting the 
identity of "the Lord's day" with Sunday. 

The testimony of the Fathers to the fact that many of 

J vv- 10 11. 
96 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 97 

the Saints observed the Sabbath idth ^^the first day of 
the week," is by this able writer not questioned. The 
Fathers are also admitted as evidence on other points 
relative to the doctrine and practices of the church in 
the times immediately succeeding the apostles' days. 
That the Sabbath was observed by some of the Jewish 
converts in the Apostolic age is shown by New Testa- 
ment history h. It was evidently done as a matter of 
policy by those who fully understood the matter. Paul 
says: ''I am made all things to all men, that I might by 
all means save some. ... To them that are without 
laWj as without law (being not without law to G-od, but 
being under the law of Christ), that I might gain them 
that are without law." Again; ^'to them that are under 
the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that 
are under the law." Paul here argues, substantially, 
that, as a religious code, all other laws save the gospel^ 
are simply nothing. And he argues precisely similarly 
in reference to eating meats and things offered to idols, 
— that to those enlighted by the law of Christ the idol 
was ''nothing'' I. To the Jewish convert yet unenlight- 
ened by the gospel, circumcision was everj^thing, and 
just as essential as baptism and the Sabbath; but in the 
gospel covenant neither circumcision or the Sabbath 
were profitable m. As a matter of policy among the 
new Jewish converts, James counseled Paul to observe 
the law, when at Jerusalem; but '^as touching the Gen- 
tiles which believe, we have written and concluded that 
they observe no such thing. ^^ 

'^Ah! but the Jaw that the apostles of Christ wrote to 
the Grentile believers not to keep, was the ceremomal IsiW,'' 
says the 'objector! Then, on the same ground, '^the law" 
referred to in the same connection in the statement, 
^'Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there 

A: 1 Cor. 9: 20-22. Zl Cor. 8:4. m Gal. 5: 6; 4: 10. 

7 



98 THE CHRISXrAN SABBATH. ' 

are which believe; and they are all zealous of the laio'^ — 
refers to the ceremonial law! And, of course, they 
manifested no zeal for the ten commandment law! ^'A 
little leaven, leaven eth the whole lump." All the law, 
or none of it, as a religious guide under the gospel, is 
the logic of the New Testament argument for keeping 
the Sabbath of the law n. ''But," says the objector, '' 'all 
the law' is said by Paul to mean 'all things which are 
written in the hook of the law.' " Just so; Paul and the 
Jews of his day were indebted to "the book of the law" 
for all they knew of the law, whether of the decalogue 
or the ceremonial. So are we. After the Babylonish 
captivity, "the book of the law" was the only source of 
obtaining the law given to Israel, or any part of it, save 
as it might be revealed anew through the prophets. 

After this slight digression from the line of argument 
from a historical basis to meet the objection to us and 
seemingly favorable to the Sabbath of the law, we now 
resume the subject. We have already seen by the New 
Testament, that the churches presided over by the 
apostle Paul assembled on "the first day of the week" for 
divine worship in accordance with Christ's example, and 
divine regulation through this apostle, Paul o; also that, 
John was inspired by the Holy G-host to speak of a day 
especially related to the Christian Institution, calling it 
"the Lord's day;" and that there is no evidence either 
sacred or profane that the term "Lord's day" was ever 
applied to the seventh-day Sabbath, and that, therefore, 
it must refer to the resurrection day— "the first day of 
the week." Our first witness to the proposition before 
us is a statement of Pliny, a Eoman governor of Bithy- 
nia at the opening of the second century, from seven to 
eight years after John wrote the Book of Revelation. In 

w Acts 20: 25; Gal. 5: 9. ol Cor. 16:1,2; Acts 20: 7; 
1 Cor. 14:37; 15:4. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 99 

a letter he wrote the Emperor Trajan giving account of 
what was developed by examuiation of Christians at his 
tribunal, he saj/s: '^They affirm that the whole of their 
guilt or error was, that they met on a certain stated 
day {stato die)^ before it was light, and addressed them- 
selves in a form of prayer to Christ, as to some God, 
binding themselves by a solemn oath, not for the pur- 
pose of any wicked design, but never to commit any 
fraud, theft, or adultery; never to falsify their word, 
nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to 
deliver it up; after which it was their custom to sepa- 
rate, and then reassemble to eat in common a harmless 
meal" p. 

This testimony of Pliny is good, not only in relation to 
the excellent standing of the Saints of his day as to 
their moral character, but to the fact that they had a 
^'certain stated day" for public worship. What day of 
the week was this "certain stated day" the Christians of 
Bithynia kept holy? Prof. Stewart, as we read from 
Quotations in Edward's Sahhath Manual^ says: '^The 
zealots for the law wished the Jewish Sabbath to be 
observed as well as the Lord's day; for about the latter 
there appears never to have been any question among 
any class of Christians, so far as I have been able to dis- 
-cover. The early Christians, one and all of them, held 
the first day of the week to be sacred" q. Could first- 
day observance have been so universally accepted by the 
early Christian church, at so early a period, had it not 
been received from Christ and the apostles? Why is it 
that not a single writer of the Christian church for the 
first three centuries can be produced who wrote against 
first-day observance? It is astonishingly strange, if the 
celebration of worship on the first day of the week was 
wrong and not divinely appointed, that among the mul- 

p Coleman's Ancient Chrietianity, Chap. 1, Sec. 1. q p. 112. 



100 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

titude of questions that came up for controversy and 
decision in the church, during the first three centuries 
of our era, that question never was brought forward! 
Eight here we quote Elder Andrews again, in connec- 
tion with the statement of Prof. Stewart, that ''those 
Fathers who hallow the Sabbath do generally associate 
with it the festival called by them the Lord's day" r. We 
feel grateful to thus be able to answer our question sug- 
gested by Pliny's testimony concerning the ''certain 
stated day" of worship — the "certain stated day," there- 
fore, was Sunday. 

Moving along some thirty-six years later than Pliny 
(a. d. 140), we come to the days of Justin Martyr. We 
. preface his statement with an authoritative observation 
or two, because of the importance of his testimony. He 
was born of G-reek parentage, in Palestine. His dia- 
logue with Trypho the Jew, was held at Ephesus, Asia 
Minor, where John wrote his Eevelation some forty-four 
years previously. The Encyclopedia Americana says he 
was "one of the earliest and most learned writers of the 
Christian church," and that "he was equally zealous in 
opposing alleged heretics." Dr. Schaff says: "After tis 
conversion Justin devoted himself wholly to the vindi- 
cation of the Christian religion, as an itinerant evangelist^ 
with no fixed abode" s. This being true, Justin had 
ample opportunity to know what the doctrine of the 
church was, not only in Asia Minor and Palestine, but 
in Home and Grreece as well. He could therefore know 
and give unquestioned testimony to the belief and prac- 
tice of the church. The Schaff -Herzog Encyclopedia 
states that "Justin professes to present the system of doc- 
trine held by all Christians and seeks to be orthodox on 
all points. The only difference he knows of as existing 
; between Christians concerned the millenium. Thus Jus- 

r Testimony of the Fathers, p. 11. s Ch. Hist,, vol. 1, p. 483. 



THE CHEISTIAN SABBATH. 101 

tin is an hi controvert Ihle icitness for the unity of the faith 
in the church of his day, and to the fact that the Gentile 
type of Christianity prevailed." Now we here give the 
words of this eminent minister of the church found in 
his famous ''Apology to the Roman Emperor Titus An- 
toninus, who being a heathen, would probably know 
neither the meaning of the term Sabbath or the Lord's 
day, hence Justin familiarly calls the day referred to, 
Sunday: ''And on the day called Sunday, all who live in 
cities or in the country gather together in one place, 
and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the 
proi)hets are read as long as time permits; then when 
the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs 
and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. 
Then we all rise together and pray, and as we said 
before, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and 
water are brought, and the president in like manner 
offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, 
and the people assent, saying, Amen; and there is dis 
tribution to each, and a participation of that over which 
thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a 
portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well 
to do, and willing, give what each each thinks fit; and 
what is collected is deposited with the president, who 
succors the orphans and widows, and those who through 
sickness, or any other cause, are in want, and those who 
are in bonds, and the strangers sojourning among us, 
and in a word, takes care of all who are in need. But 
Sunday is the day on which loe all hold our conwion assem- 
bly, — because it is the first day on which God, having 
wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made 
the world; and Jesus Christ, our Savior, on the same 
day rose from the dead. For he was crucified on the 
day before that rf Saturn [Saturday]; and on the day 
after that of Saturn, v/hich is the day of the sun, hav- 



102 THE CIIPJSTIAN SIBBATH. 

ing appeared to his apcstles and disciples, he taught 
them these things, which y/e have submitted to you also 
for your consideration" t. Here is clear, straightfor- 
ward, unquestioned testimony, authoritative evidence, 
that the Church of Christ held their '"assembly" for the 
worship of Grod on Sunday, the first day of the week, and 
not the seventh day. Let any one analyze this state- 
ment of Justin relative to the general belief of the church 
at that time, the manner of worship, charity, the Lord's 
supper, and the day of the assembling, and compare it 
with the practice of the church in the first century u^ 
and Paul's example in worship with the church at Troas 
v^ his divinely inspired instructions to and regulations 
among the churches w^ and it will be clearly seen that 
the churches were yet abiding ^'in the apostles' doctrine, '^ 
as Christ, when appearing to his disciples after his resur- 
rection ''taught them these things." 

Let us now move along ten years later only (a. d. 150), 
and the testimony of Barnabas unites with that of Jus- 
tin: "For which cause we observe the eighth day with 
gladness, in which Jesus rose from the dead; and having 
manifested himself to his disciples, ascended into 
heaven." The testimony of Barnabas is admitted to 
have been in existence as early as the date here assigned, 
by the ablest of seventh-day advocates x. It was cited 
by Clemens Alexandrinus, who flourished in the latter 
part of the second century, and others later along, 
including Origen and Eusebius. His writings were 
extensively read in the early church. They are there- 
fore reliable. 

We next hear the evidence of Dionysius, Bishop of 
Corinth, v/ho wrote about a. d. 170. In his epistle writ- 

< First. Apoloory of Juetin, chapter 67. w Acts 11 : 2r-'?9 30; 

Rom. 12:8. v Acts 20; 1 Cor. 16: 1. 2. ^081.2:10. 

X Andrew's History of the Sabbath, p. 218. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 103 

ten to Soter, Bishop of Rome, he says: '^To-day we have 
passed the LoixV s holy day^ in which we have read your 
epistle; in reading which we shall always have our minds 
stored with admonition, as we shall, also, from that writ- 
ten to us before by Clement" y. Some object to this state- 
ment of Dionysius and say it is not honest to cite it as 
evidence favoring first-day worship, for while the term 
^ ^Lord's day" is used, it is not defined, and we cannot 
determine whet day is referred to, the first, or last da}' 
of the week. To this we reply, We have no evidence in 
the Bible, or church history, of the term here used ever 
being applied to the Sabbath of the law. This fact sorely 
tries advocates of the Sabbath cause. Further, the day 
on which the churches met to worship, and to read the 
prophets, the memoirs of the apostles and other writings, 
was "the day after that of Saturn." "Sunday," sayb 
Justin Martyr (a. d. 140), is the day on which we hold 
our common assembly." 

Elder J. N. Andrews, in his ^^ History of the Sahhath 
and First day,'' after devoting an entire chapter in notic- 
ingv the reasons assigned by the Ante-Nicene Fathers 
for not observing the seventh-day, and their reasons for 
keeping, as a day of rest and worship to God, "the first 
day of the week," Sunday, "the Lord's day" — the resur- 
rection day — cciif esses that, "The reasons offered by the 
early fathers for, neglecting the observance of the sab- 
bath show conclusively that they had no special light on 
the subject by reason of living in the first cerJuries, which 
we in this later age do not possess" 2;. The names of all 
the prominent Fathers are mentioned by this historian 
as "neglecting to observe the sabbath" . . . "in the 
first centuries," and hence Dionysius must have meant 
Sunday by the "Lord's day," and more especially since,, 
as Elder Andrews says, "those fathers who hallow the 

y Eueebius' Eccl. Hist., Book 4, chapter 21. z p. 308. 



104 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

Sabbath do generally associate with it the festival called 
by them the Lord's day" a. 

Not only this, but in this testimony of Dionysius, 
Clement is referred to as a contemporary writer with 
himself. We will therefore notice in this connection 
Clement's reference to the first day of the w^eek, or, as 
was quite usual with the ecclesiastical writers of the 
early Christian church, to refer to it as the "eighth" day, 
a custom that grew out of the second meeting of Christ 
with the disciples, as mentioned in John Z>, Clement 
referring to a prophecy of the philosopher Plato, says: 
"And the Lord's day Plato prophetically speaks of in 
the tenth book of the Repvhlic^ in these words : 'And when 
seven days have passed to each of them in the meadow, 
on the eighth day they are to set out and arrive in four 
days' " c. 

I do not quote Clement's explanations of Plato's sub- 
ject, it being unnecessary here, but enough of this fath- 
er's language and his quotation to show that in the days 
of Dionysius and Clement the eighth day from Christ's 
resurrection, the first day of the week, and the Lord's 
day, were then identical. Clement again observes: "He, 
in fulfillment of the precept, according to the gospel, 
keeps the Lord's day, when he abandons an evil dispo- 
sition, and assumes that of the Gnostic, glorifying the 
Lord's resurrection in himself" d. 

For the sake of consistency, it should not be urged by 
seventh-day advocates that the seventh day is referred 
to by the fathers when using the terms "Lord's day," for 
they, almost without exception, when writing of the 
seventh day, call it the Sabbath. This statement can- 
not be successfully controverted. But it is evident that 
the first day of the week was called "the Lord's day" by 

o TestimoDy of Fatherr^, p. 11. 6 chap. 20:26. c B«)ok 5, chap. 15. 
d Miscellanies of Clement, Book 7, chap. 14. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 105 

ethers than John the apostle, before the days of Diony- 
sius and Clement (a. d. 170-194), for in the writings 
ascribed to Ignatius, mentioned and cited by Irenaeus 
(a. D. 177), Origen and others still later, and believed 
by many able men of the past to have been collected by 
Polycarp, the disciple of John the Revelator, we find the 
following: ^'Wherefore, if they who were brought up in 
these ancient laws came nevertheless to the newness of 
hope; no longer observing sabbaths, but keeping the 
Lord's day, in which also our life is sprung up in him" e. 
The translation from which I here quote, is that of Wil- 
liam Wake, Lord Bishop of Lincoln, afterward, of Can- 
terbury. I mention this because this translation does 
not agree in verbiage precisely with those given by Elder 
J. N. Andrews in his "^Testimony of the Fathers.''' Bishop 
Wake cites abundant testimony, in the Introduction to 
his translation of the epistles of Ignatius, to their antiq- 
uity. "The Lord's day, " referred to in this text, can refer 
to no other than the first day of the week, for the sev- 
enth day is referred to in the immediate connection and 
called the Sabbath. Here, then, is evidence identifying 
the Lord's day with the first day of the week prior to the 
days of Dionysius and Clement. 

But the earliest use of the term "Lord's day" now 
known, is that of John the divine. The phrase is a for- 
mation by the Holy Spirit, it would seem, and is never 
applied to any other than the day of Christ's resurrection, 
the first day of the week, as we have already seen. In 
regard to the words, ' 'no longer observing the sabbath, 
but living in observance of the Lord's day," as found in 
the shorter epistle of Ignatius, according to Elder An- 
drews he lends favor to a translation of these words that 
excludes the word "day" and inserts "life," making it 
read "Lord's life," instead of "Lord's day," "literally, 

c Epistle to the Meagnesians, chap. 3: 3. 



106 THE CHKISTIAN SABBATH. 

^no longer sabbatizing, but living according to the Lord's 
life' "/. But his effort on this, as on the text relating to 
the meeting at Troas, overdoes the matter and causes 
the writer to deny that Christ kept the Sabbath! — "No 
longer sabbatizing, hut living according to the Lord's life^ 
This translation is not only what the writer, or any 
other of the fathers taught not^ but does violation to the 
subject had under consideration by the writer. He was 
exhorting the Christians to no longer observe the Sab- 
bath of the law, but to observe, as a day of worship 
instead, "the Lord's day." This is the face of the record 
as given us. Why this effort to break down the testi- 
mony of Luke, John, and the Ante-Nicene Fathers, in 
reference to first-day observance on the part of the 
ancient Christian Church? Simply because they believed 
in keeping "the first day of the week," "the Lord's day," 
as a day of worship, while the Sabbatarians believe in 
keeping us around the foot of Mount Sinai, in the wilder- 
ness, keeping Saturday as a rest day. They celebrate 
the coming of Israel out of Egypt g^ while ' 'the children 
of the kingdom" believe in celebrating the emancipa- 
tion of the whole world^ from the bondage of sin, death 
and hell A on the glorious resurrection day of Christ, 
Sunday, and by an undeniable manifestation of their 
faith in a Savior who, on that venerable day, broke the 
bands of death, and drew aside the dark veil that had, 
until then, wrapt in eternal night the shining way to the 
world of bliss and eternal peace, (so far as the benighted 
world was concerned), and by the gospel led the mind of 
the world, as yet "without hope, and without Grod in the 
world," from the day by them revered, to Him ivho formed 
the day! Also that the nations might no longer worship 
and serve the creature (the sun), but him who had cre- 
ated it. 

/Testimony of Fathers, p. 27. (7Deut5:15. ;iJohnl:29; 
Bom 5: 18, 19; 1 Cor. 15: 22; Kev. 1: 18, 20; 2J: 13. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 107' 

The Jews were not far behind the Gentiles who revered 
Sunday, in their reverence of Saturday, for Paul had 
* 'proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under 
sin.'' And in that same letter {, Paul charged both Jews 
and Gentiles with having too great regard for certain 
days^ and too little for Him to whom the day and the 
whole creation points — the Creator. 

Bardesanes, who flourished and wrote about a. d. 180, 
a resident of Syria, and a member of the Gnostics, will 
be cited next. Of the establishment of Christianity, 
which ''Christ at his advent planted in every country," 
he remarks: "On one day, the first of the week, we 
assemble ourselves together, and on the days of the 
readings we abstain from [taking] sustenance" y. Thus 
speaks this writer of the assembly of the Christians in 
his times on the first day of the week. And this day, as 
we have seen, was the day of public worship in the days 
of Justin Martyr. And Ignatius, Dionysius (a. d. 170), 
and Clement call "the first day of the week" "the Lord's 
day." Bardesanes belonged to the Gnostics. And Elder 
Andrews says "This shows that the Gnostics used Sun- 
day as the day for religious assemblies" h. Precisely. And 
Bardesanes writes of the institution of Christianity, which 
"Christ at his advent planted in every country^'' and was 
designed to be published among "all nations." The evi- 
dence, therefore, is now before us, that early in the 
second century the Christian church, including the 
heretical sects, all observed the first day of the week as 
the day of religious worship, celebrating the worship of 
God on the day of the resurrection of his Son — the. 
Lord's day. 

i Rom. 14: 5. j Book of t^-ie Laws of Countries. k Teetimony 
of Fathers, p. 54, 



108 



CHAPTER XII. 

DID NOT OETGINATE WITH EOMAN BISHOPS. 
FIRST DAY AND LORD'S DAY IDEN- 
TICAL. 

A noticeable insinuation^ amounting in effect to an 
assertion that Sunday observance, as a day of Christian 
worship, originated at Rome, after the days of the apos- 
tles, is manifest in the works of Sabbatarians on this 
subject, generally. Now the evidence, as we have pre- 
sented so far, is just the reverse of this idea. Justin 
Mart3^r was, as Dr. Schaff says, ^^an itinerant evangel- 
ist." He traveled among the churches indifferent coun- 
tries. Dionysius was Bishop at Corinth, in Creece. 
Bardesanes was of Edessa, in Syria; and Clement resided 
in Alexandria in Egypt. So that down to A. D. 194, we 
have offered no testimony specially Roman, unless it be 
that of Paul or Luke I. The church at Rome, having 
been founded in the apostolic age, no doubt kept sacred 
the first day of the week like the churches of Calatia, 
Corinth and Troas, and as Christ and the apostles before 
them had done. But the testimony of the Fathers goes 
to show conclusively, that whether the Roman and other 
western churches kept ''the Lord's day" or not, the 
Eastern and Southern churches did. And this was more 
than three hundred years he/ore a pope had an existence 
in the church to issue bulls, ordain canons, hurl anathe- 
mas, change times and laim^ or crimson his hands with 
the sacred blood of the martyrs. 

Tertullian, of Africa, also an extensive traveler, who 
w^rote about a. d. 200, and who, as Johnson's Cyclopedia 

11 Cor. 16: 1. 2: Acts 20: 7. 

108 



THE CHRISTIAN SxVBBATH. 100 

says, 'Vas a representative of the African opposition 
to Rome," comes next. Elder Andrews says of him: 
^'He speaks of the Lord's day as the eighth day;" also, 
^'He was not so far removed from the time of the apos- 
tles but that many clear rays of divine truth shone upon 
him" m. And we add, when referring to the seventh 
day he called it Saturday, and the Sabbath. And after 
a number of references to the Sabbath, Sabbaths, and 
other festivals observed by the Jews, he says while apolo- 
gizing for the church for observing the first day of the 
week for the solemn celebration of public worship, — 
'^Not on the Lord's day, not Pentecost, even if they had 
known them, would they [the Jews] have shared with us; 
for they would fear lest they should seem to be Chris- 
tians" n. Again : ^ 'We solemnize the day after Saturday in 
contradistinction to those who call this day their Sabbath, 
and, devoting it to ease and eating, deviating from the 
old Jewish customs, which they are now very ignorant 
of'o. ''The day after Saturday" was "the Lord's day" 
when Tertullian wrote his able and learned defense of 
the doctrine and practice of the church in his times. He 
was among the ablest of the Fathers whose writings 
have come down to our day. His writings, bold advo- 
cacies of what he believed to be true, forbid the idea that 
he, as a bishop of the church, accepted without question 
whatever might be presented as truth. He opposed 
Jew and Grentile, in the church or out^ in what he believed 
to be wrong. With examples of Christian heroism like 
Paul and other noble martyrs of Jesus, he would not 
yield to what was popular merely for the satisfaction or 
a love of the glory of men. He, with the other official 
representatives of the church in the first and second cen- 
turies, must have had ample and satisfactory evidence of 

TO Testimony of the Fathers, pp. 63. fi4. n On Idolatry, chap. 15. 

Sec. 16. 



110 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

the sacredness of the first day of the week as a day of 
worship, and that John by the divine Spirit called that 
day ''the Lord's day." 

It cannot be argued with any greater regard for the 
truth that ''Lord's day" observance was an innovation 
on the Christian religion, brought in by apostasy, than 
that the continued observance of circumcision, or the 
Jewish ritual for two or three centuries, was the work 
of the apostasy. Those who, in the church, during those 
times, kept the seventh day, did not question the right 
or propriety of first-day observance. This is most sig- 
nificant. On this point we quote the following facts, and 
the more readily because they are accepted by seventh- 
day advocates as valid and used by them in evidence^. 
They testify to the verity of first-day worship in the 
church in the Apostolic Age: "The last day of the week 
was strictly kept in connection with that of the first day, 
for a long time after the overthrow of the temple and its 
worship" g. Again: "The primitive Christians had a 
great veneration for the Sabbath, and spent the day in 
devotion and sermons. And it is not to be doubted but 
they derived this practice from the apostles themselves, 
as appears by several Scriptures to that purpose; who 
[the apostles] keeping both that day and the first day of 
the week, gave occasion to succeeding ages to join them 
together, and make it one festival, though there was not 
the same reason for the continuance of the custom as 
there was to begin it" r. 

That the apostles, and even Christ, kept the Sabbath 
in the earl}^ church, hefore the crucifixion, no one ques- 
tions. The first day of the week would hardly have been 
observed as a sacred day prior to the resurrection of 

p Andrews' History of the Sabbath. q Coleman's Ancient 

Christianity Exemplified, chap. 26, sec. 2. 

r Morer's Dialogues on the Lord's 

Day, page 189. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. ill 

Christ, for the law embodymg the Sabbath did not die 
as a religious code, till Christ died, and the new cove- 
nant, embodying the Lord's day, did not come into effect 
till after the death and resurrection of the testator which 
it was designed to commemorate. But there is now the 
unquestioned evidence before us, that ^'tlie apostles'" and 
^'primitive Christians" did keep "the first day of the 
week" sacred to ''devotion and sermons;" and this fact 
Elder J. N. Andrews admits, tacitly, when he intro- 
duces these witnesses into the controversy. Paul met 
with the Jews frequently on the Sabbath, in his efforts 
to convince them of the Messiahship of Christ; but we 
have no record of his assembling with the disciples — the 
church only — on the seventh day for worship. 

William Twisse, D. D., of England, in his Morality of 
the Fourth Commandment, sa^^s: "Yet for some hun- 
dred years in the primitive church, not the Lord's day 
only, but the seventh day also, was religiously observed, 
not by Ebion and Cerenthus only, but by pious Chris- 
tians also" s. Yes; and the effort on the part of the Jew- 
ish converts to perj3e^?f«^e the laio and the Sabbath, 
sowed the seeds of heresy in the church in the days of 
the apostles that afterward developed the sects of Naza- 
renes, Ebionites and the Hypsistarii. Of the first of 
these Morer says: "They pretended to believe as Chris- 
tians, yet the}'" practiced as Jews, and so were in reality 
neither the one nor the other" t. Paul was at war with 
the originators of those heresies during his entire min- 
isterial career, and the church was much disturbed by 
them. Even the apostles Peter and James were infected 
to a degree with some of the ideas from which those 
sects were afterward developed and distinguished!^. 
With such examples — apostolical — we need not be sur- 
prised to find the superstitions among the converts after- 

s Page 9, London, 1641. t Dialogaag, p. 66. 



112 THE CHEI8TIAN SABBATH. 

ward magnifying those apostolic weaknesses. Even 
some of the ministry among the Gentile churches went 
off into the error of teaching the perpetuity of the law 
as binding on the Christians in a religious Fense. Of 
them he gave in charge to Timothy: ^'As I besought thee 
to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, 
that thou mightest charge some that they teach no 
other doctrhie, neither give heed to endless genealogies, 
which minister questions rather than godly edifying 
which is in faith: so do. Now the end of the command- 
ment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good con- 
science, and of faith unfeigned; from which some having 
swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; desiring to 
he teachers of the law; understanding neither what they 
say, nor whereof they affirm. But we know that the 
law is good, if a man use it lawfidly^ [in the hands of the 
officers of the civil government since the introduction of 
the gospel, and not in the hands of the gospel ministry], 
knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous 
man, but for the latvless and disobedient , for the ungodly 
and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers 
of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for 
whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with 
mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, 
and if there be any other thing contrary to sound doc- 
trine; according to the glorious gospel of the blessed 
God, which was committed to my trust" v. These men 
in their endeavor to adopt the law and enforce it on the 
Christians conjointly with the gospel, had swerved from 
the gospel requirements called by Paul here ^ 'the com- 
mandment." Peter once called "the way of righteous- 
ness" "the holy commandment" w. And the law, of 
which they desired to be teachers, was that which 
embodied the decalogue; that by which liars, thieves, 

u Gal. 2: 11, 14, 15; Acts 21: 17-25. v 1 Tim. 1: 3-11. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 113 

murderers and ^^tlie lawless,^' were tried, condemned and 
punished; and the only place ^'the law" could deal with 
such characters, since the introduction of the gospel, was 
in the civil courts, and at the hands of the civil officers. 

It was by these heretics that the seventh day, with 
the rest of the law, was observed and perpetuated in the 
early ages of the church, and by later historians asso- 
ciated with "the primitive Christians." 

We have now found by the testimony of the 
Scriptures that the first day of the week was 
kept as a day of worship to God by the apostles 
and primitive Christians, and confirmed by the 
%in controverted testimony of the history; also that the 
first day of the week and "the Lord's day" were ident- 
ical and those terms used interchangeably from the days 
of John, A. D. 96, to the end of the second century. Also 
that the seventh day was observed by the heretical sects 
that arose through the influence of false teachers, usu- 
ally resulting in apostasy from the gospel of Christ, and 
illustrating the truth of Paul's statements, that "Christ 
is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are 
justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace." "A little 
leaven leaveneth the whole lump" x. . 

By reference to Elder J. N. Andrews' Complete Testi- 
mony of the Fathers, I find he mentions the "seventh 
fragment" of the "Lost Writings of Irenseus," preserved 
by some writer to us unknown, and gives the quotation. 
In the quotation the "unknown writer" speaks of the 
custom "of not bending the knee upon Sunday," it being 
'^a symbol of the resurrection," and then represents 
"the blessed Irenseus, the martyr and bishop of Lyons," 
"in his treaties 'On Easter,'" as tracing the origin of 
the custom of not kneeling on Sunday, to the "apostolic 
times," also mentioning Pentecost, and calling what the 

vj 2 Peter 2 : 21. x Gal. 5 : 4, 9. 
8 



114 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

'^unknown writer" calls Sunday ^^the Lord's day." Elder 
J. N. Andrews represents the ^ ^unknown writer" as 
using the terms ^^the Lord's day," but the quotation 
itself shows that the writer quotes it from the treatise 
of Irenaeus. It is strange the Elder would do thus and 
then give the quotation of the unknown writer! y. 

In his ^'History of the Sabbath" Elder Andrews, after 
thrice quoting from Irenseus says: ''These things indi- 
cate that Irenseus was opposed to sabbatic observance." 
Now, Eusebius, the Father of church historians, and an 
admitted authority, in his Ecclesiastical History z, allud- 
ing to a controversy that occured in the times of Ii:en8eus, 
A. D. 167-178, concerning the annual celebration of 
Christ's resurrection called the festival of the passover, 
states that the bishops of the different countries, of 
whom Irenaeus was one, decided ''that the mystery of 
our Lord's resurrection should be celebrated on no 
other day than the Lord's day; and that on this day 
alone we should observe the paschal fasts." 

It is not just nor fair to presume, as some Sabbath advo- 
cates do, that because Eusebius lived and wrote after the 
days of IrenaBus, and that because the first day of the 
week was then known to be called "the Lord's day," 
that this learned historian, in recording the words and 
actions of those eminent men who preceded him, would 
misrepresent them or commit a fraud. There is no evi- 
dence that he so did regarding the Sabbath, Pentecost, 
the Passover, or any other day. Eusebius learned, 
of those preceding him, that the first day of the week 
was the Lord's day; and besides, he preserved the title 
to a work written by Melito a, A. d. 177, "0^ the Lord's 
day. ' ' 

The testimony of Irenseus and Melito to the identity 
of the Lord's day with Sunday, the Lord's resurrection 

y Page 49. z Book 5, chap. 23 a Book 4, chap. 26. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 115 

day, precede that of Bardesanes, Clement, and Tertullian, 
from three to twenty- three years. But Irenaeus was 
acquamted with Polycarp, che friend and disciple of 
John the Revelator, who first, by divine inspiration, 
used the phrase the ' 'Lord's day. " We cannot well avoid 
the conclusion, therefore, that that apostle was the. 
source of Irenaeus' information respecting the identity 
of the Lord's day with the day of the Lord's resurrection. 
The apostle John is the first person known in all antiq- 
uity to have used the phraseology, ''the Lord's day." 
In all his after writings in the gospel and in the Epistles, 
it is significant that he never applied the term "the 
Lord's day" to the seventh day — the Sabbath! He, like 
the Fathers that followed him, called it "the first day of 
the week," and the "eighth day" from the resurrection 
of his Lord. All history points to John's Revelation on 
Patmos as the origin of the appellation, "the Lord's day." 
All history, and the very nature of the combination of 
the appellation, unite in testifying that "the first day of 
the week" — the first day that ever witnessed, as an 
accomxjlished fact^ the completeness of the plan of eter- 
nal redemption for mankind — the day of our Lord's 
resurrection — is "the Lord's day." 

Origen comes next after Tertullian in witnessing not 
only to the identity of "the first day of the week" with 
"the Lord's day," but also to the observance of the 
Lord's day as a sacred day of worship by the church in 
his times. He is admitted on all sides to be one of the 
ablest churchmen of his times, and his writings are 
numerous. He flourished about a. d. 225. He is sup- 
posed to have been born in Egypt, at Alexandria. It is 
stated that he traveled extensively among the churches 
and died at Tyre. He speaks of the Sabbath and the 
Lord's day, in one place arraying them in direct con- 
trast, alleging that "the manna fell on the Lord's day, 



116 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

and not on the sabbath" h. And m defense of the church 
practice against Celsus he says: ''If it be objected to us 
on this subject that we are accustomed to observe cer- 
tain days, as, for example, the Lord's day, the Prepara- 
tion, the Passover, or Pentecost, I have to answer, that 
to the perfect Christian, who is ever in his thoughts^ 
words^ and deeds, serving his natural Lord, God the 
Word, all his days are the Lord's, and he is always keep- 
ing the Lord's day^" c. This testimony of Origen is 
decisive as to the belief and practice of the church in the 
opening years of the third century in sacredly observing 
"the Lord's day" as a weekly rest-day, a Sabbath. 
Origen's reference to the daily practice of righteousness 
by the Christians, as in contradistinction to the supersti- 
tious idea of the heathens that we ought to live hetter 
some days titan on others^ and his judicious remarks on tha 
subject, are in harmony with Paul's instructions to the 
Romans: "He that regard eth not the day, to the Lord 
he doth not regard it" d. And like Paul he looked upon 
the seventh day of the creation as being typical of the 
final rest of the people of God e. And since Joshua was 
unable to lead into that rest the people to whom this 
rest, thus typified by God's rest on the seventh day, was 
first presented, because of their unbelief, God spoke of 
another rest day, by the prophet David. 

Instead of the Roman church being guilty of the 
charge, so often made by Sabbath advocates, of gradu- 
ally changing the Sabbath from the seventh to the first 
day, we find the churches of the east and of Africa 
observing the first day of the week as a day of assembl- 
ing for divine worship, from the days of the apostles; 
and, as the witnesses say, commemorative of the resurrec- 
tion of our glorious Lord from the dead^ and as typical of, 

h Opera Tome 2, p. 158. c Book 8, chap. 22. d Rom. 14: 6, 7. 
Book 4, chap. 31. e Heb. 4: 4-10. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 117 

or looking forward to, that rest and life that is by the 
Savior's resurrection assured. 

As late as the days immediately succeeding those of 
Origen, a Roman presbyter, Novatian (a. d. 245-50), 
who also is said to be the founder of the Cathari or Puri- 
tan sect, is found contending for the Sabbath of the law, 
teaching that the giving of the decalogue at Sinai was 
only a revival of the ten commandment law, and trying 
to wrest the law from Jewish superstition. This was at 
Rome! But the result was sectism, as other similar 
efforts had been. Novatian was no doubt an indirect 
successor to those met by the apostle Paul in his famous 
argument to the Roman church, wherein he shows that, 
to be placed under obligation to keep the law and the 
gospel at the same time, as a religious code, forced the 
Christian into a condition of spiritual adultery 1 No won- 
der those sects who so teach finally die out e. 

We believe the foregoing testimonies, gathered from 
the New Testament, the history of the first three cen- 
turies of the church by Morer, Twisse and Coleman, 
together with the statements of the Fathers, so far pro- 
duced, is sufficient to establish beyond successful dispute 
the truth of the proposition, viz., — The first day of the 
week, the Lord's resurrection day, was the day called by 
John the Revelator ''the Lord's day," and that, there- 
fore, it was the day divinely appointed for the solemn 
celebration of the worship of G-od under the gospel, 
and that the apostles and early Fathers, with the 
church, so understood it, and therefore so kept it, that 
day also commemorating the glorious resurrection of the 
Lord and Savior. 

eRom. 7: 1-6. 



118 



CHAPTER XIII. 

DID THE POPE CHANGE THE SABBATH? 

In view of the fact that the gospel nowhere enjoins 
anew the observance of the seventh day as a Sabbath; 
and, that Christ did not re-enact it; and, of the further 
fact, that the church as such did not adopt its observ- 
ance, but only the Jewish converts at first (and not all 
of them), followed in after times by Judaizing sects; and, 
further, from the general historical fact, as we have 
hitherto seen, that the church, with the apostles, at the 
beginning, and right along down the ages after, did 
assemble for worship — preaching, prayer, reading the 
Scriptures, celebrating the Lord's death by partaking 
the Lord's supper, and also his resurrection — on ''the 
Lord's day" — the question at the head of this division of 
the subject appears almost impertinent. Moreover, the 
evidence found in the New Testament of Sabbath observ- 
ance, so far as the argument is concerned, is just as 
strong in favor of circumcision and other legal rites. 
And yet further; we have failed to find the least iota of 
evidence in either the Bible or the writings of a single 
one of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, so far as examined, 
that the name — ''the Lord's day" — was ever applied to 
the seventh-day Sabbath of the law, but invariahJy^ and 
without exception, to the first day of the week. Eead- 
ers of the Fathers will note this fact with special 
attention. 

But it has been assumed, first by the Catholics, in 
their Catechism, and more recently by Sabbatarians, 

118 



THE CHRISTIAN SAC3ATH. 119 

that the Pope of Rome changed the Sabbath from the 
last to the first day of the week; and by the latter it is 
asserted, but totally without proof, that to observe the 
Lord's day as sacred is but observing an institution of 
the Pope! This assumption, to be true, must take for 
granted that the Catholic Church, with a Pope at its 
head, was the church originally established by Christ, 
and that Christ placed icitJan the church the authority to 
annul, or change at will, any divine law, ceremony or 
institution, at any time it saw fit! These two proposi- 
tions must be unquestionably established, or the assump- 
tion is baseless. But there is no way of proving either 
of these assumptions to be true, therefore the statement 
that the Pope of Rome changed the Sabbath is false. 
All history accords (backed by previously uttered and 
divinely inspired prophecy), that the Catholic Church, 
in its primal organization, was the result of a gradual 
and deceptive apostasy from original Christianity. 
There was no such personage in the church, or out of it, 
as a Pope, with assumed powers of universal control 
and dictatorial, decretal, or other arrogated right, till 
the beginning of the sixth century. Andrews, in his 
History of the Sahhath, says: "In the early part of this 
(sixth) century, the oishop of Rome was made head over 
the entire church by the emperor of the east, Justinian," 
and he cites as authority for the statement Shimxeall's 
Bible Chronology/. But history, generally, places the 
universal ascendancy of the Roman bishop one hundred 
years later, when, (in a. d. 606) Boniface was declared 
to be "Universal Bishop." 

But it is urged that much earlier than this, even in 
the reign of Constantine (in a. d. 321) that emperor 
issued an edict to the citizens of the Empire that Sun- 
day should be observed as a day of rest from secular 

/ Pase 369. 



1:^0 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

labor, and that this was an all-miportant step in the 
movement of changing the Sabbath of the decalogue, 
and that the change, by successive stejos or stages, was 
fully accomplished, to the satisfaction of the church, by 
an ecclesiastical council held at Laodicea (a. d. 364), a 
city of Asia Minor, and more than one thousand miles 
from Rome. Let anyone read the edict of Constantine, 
a copy of which is given by J. N. Andrews in his History 
of the Sabbath, and it will be seen- that there is not one 
word in it having the most distant reference to the 
Sabbath Ip'. And, in fact, it is now confessed in a recent 
number of the Advent Review^ that '^it is safe to affirm 
that there was nothing done in the time of Constantine, 
either by himself or any other, that has the least appear- 
ance of changing the Sabbath" h. This confession super- 
sedes the necessity of further argument in rebuttal of 
the claim that Constantine the Great changed the Sab- 
bath. 

But what was the result of his edict with the people 
of the Empire, heatJwn as well as Christian? We will 
let the ecclesiastical historian, Mosheim, answer this 
question: "The first day of the week, which was the 
ordinary and stated time for the public assemblies of the 
Christians, was, in consequence of a peculiar law enacted 
by Constantine, observed with greater solemnity than 
it had formerly been" i. - Constantine's Sunday law 
could have had no special influence over the Christians, 
who had observed that day with sacred regard, as we 
have shown by Sabbatarian evidence, from the days of 
the apostles, save as a protection from heathen inter- 
ruption of religious services on that day. According to 
the edict itself, whatever veneration the people of the 
Empire entertained for Sunday, to use the language of 

g Page 342. h Number for Dec. 13th, 1887, p. 780. i Hist. 
Cent. 4, part 2, chap. 4. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 121 

an able Sabbatarian, Elder and Editor Waggoner, '^the 
idea of rest from worldly labor in its worship was 
entirely new" j. By the testimony of Constantine's 
edict, then, and this confession of Elder Waggoner, the 
church did not borrow, or in any way derive the idea of 
worship to God on the first day of the week from the 
heathens! 

The Encyclopedia Britannica, Article Sunday, of Con- 
stantine's edict, says: "Before him, and even in his time, 
they observed the Jewish Sabbath, as well as Sunday; 
both to satisfy the law of Moses, and to imitate the apos- 
tles tcTio used to meet together on the first day^h. Elder 
Andrews calls this citation "a high authority." We 
observe in this connection that those sects who adhered 
to the law of Moses, did not question for a moment the 
right or propriety of Lord's day observance; not an 
instance of the kind is found even from the days of the 
apostles. Those heretics recognized the first day of the 
week as being the Lord's day. 

Another writer of acknowledged authority with Elder 
Andrews I testifies harmoniously with the last passage 
cited, who, writing of the practice of the church in the 
days of Pliny, and of Pliny's statement concerning the 
Christians, says: "As the Sabbath day appears to have 
been quite as commonly observed at this date as the 
sun's day (if not more so), it is just as probable that this 
stated day, referred to by Pliny, was the seventh day? 
as that it was the first day; though the latter is gener- 
ally taken for granted. " 

The "date" referred to here is a. d. 103-104, only 
seven to eight years after John wrote the book of Reve- 
lation. It will be remembered that after the over- 
throw of Jerusalem, Asia Minor became the principal 

j Advent Review, Nov. 22. 18Sr. k Editi-^n f 1842, I TeRtimony 
of Fathers, p. 25. ObliuHti ^r.:^ of the Sabbath, p. 300. 



122 THE CllKlSTIAN SABBATH. 

fiela of operation and settlement for the Christians. 
Also, large and important settlements of Jews were 
made in the localities of the "seven churches." They, 
doubtless, with their zeal for the law, influenced the 
Jewish converts among the churches, and some of them, 
no doubt, revered the seventh day, as this writer 
observed. It is evident that such was the case, as their 
influence was demoralizing on the lives of some in the 
church at Smyrna, and also at Philadelphia. And since 
the coming of the Messiah, by the gospel only can any 
become Jews in fact m. The Holy Spirit denies their 
claim to Abrahamic descent by virtue of the law, and 
denounces them as being "the synagogue of Satan." 
And besides, there were many in the church in those 
regions, ^^specialJy they of the circumcision,^^ who were 
"unruly and vain talkers and deceivers," whose mouths 
it became necessary to close, who for the sake of money 
subverted the faith of enth^e households ?«, hence the 
sabbatizing sects that began to develop about that 
"date." But this witness testifies that the first day of 
the week — the Lord's day — was observed as a day of 
worship by the Christians at the opening of the second 
century. No doubt the Jews joined the heathen in cast- 
ing the observers of the Lord's day "into prison," to try 
them. 

From the foregoing it appears that the first day of the 
week had been observed from the apostolic age as a day 
of worship, therefore the edict of Constantine restrain- 
ing labor on "the venerable day of the sun," on the part 
of the citizens of the Koman Government, had not the 
remotest relation to a change of the Sabbath. It would 
have a tendency to invite the attention of the mind of 
the Koman world to a consideration of the basic fact of 
the gospel of God, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from 

mRom. 2: 28, 29. n Titus 1 : 10, 11. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 123^^ 

the dead, the weekly recurrence of the day, as one of the 
leadmg reasons icl^y the day should be observed, and 
thence on to the honor of the Lord of the day, their 
Savior. 



124 



CHAPTER XIV. 

^^THE APOSTOLICAL CONSTITUTIONS." 

This work is cited by Elder J. N. Andrews, in the 
Complete Testimony of the Fathers^ and their evidence to 
the identity of the first day of the week with the Lord's 
day, is examined, and admitted also that ''they were in 
existence as early as the third century, and w^ere then 
very generally believed to express the doctrine of the 
apostles. They do therefore furnish important testi- 
mony to the practice of the church at that time." 
Mosheim's notice of these ''Constitutions" is also cited 
and reads: "The matter of this work is unquestionably 
ancient; since the manners and discipline of which it 
exhibits a view are those which prevailed amongst the 
Christians of the second and third centuries, especially 
those resident in G-reece and the oriental regions" o. 
Also, the Historian Guericke's reference to the Apostol- 
ical Constitutions which says: "This is a collection of 
ecclesiastical statutes purporting to be the work of the 
apostolic age, but in reality formed gradually in the 
second^ third, and fourth centuries, and is of much value in 
reference to the history of polity, and Christian archas- 
ology generally" p. Here we are carried back to the days 
inmiediately succeeding those of the apostles, with 
"important historical testimony^' concerning the polity, 
manners, discipline, and archaeology of the church of 
Christ q. In these, as in other writings of the Ante- 

Hist. Com. Cen. 1, sec. 51. p Ancient Church, p. 213. 
q Complete Teetimony of the Fathers, p. 13. 

124 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 125 

Nicene Fathers, Saturday is never called the Lord's day, 
but mvariably ''sabbath," and, "the seventh day." By 
them the Sabbath is recognized as a suitable ''fast" 
day. 

Of the manner in which the Lord's day was observed 
in those times, the "Constitutions" state this: "And on 
the day of our Lord's resurrection, which is the Lord's 
day, meet more diligently, sending praise to God that 
made the universe by Jesus and sent him to us." This 
testimony, also, confirms that of Ignatius, Barnabas, 
and others of the second century, who identify the Lord's 
day with the first day of the week: "Otherwise what 
apology will he make to God who does not assemble on 
that day to hear the saving word concerning the resur- 
rection, on which we pray thrice, standing, in memory 
of him who arose in three days, in which is performed 
the reading of the prophets, the preaching of the gospel, 
the oblation of the sacrifice, the gift of the holy food" r. 
If the churches of Asia had not been taught that the 
Lord's day — so-called by the apostle John — was the first 
day of the week, and that it was the day on which it was 
designed that the Lord's supper, with other religious 
services, were to be observed weekly, it appears utterly 
unreasonable that the entire body of the church could 
have been brought to accept so important a change in 
less than half a century, and that, too, without valid 
authority. 

That the Lord's supper, a memorial of our Lord's 
death, should be celebrated on the Lord's day, appears 
consistent and harmonious with divine arrangement. 
The Jews, under the law, had a weekly and an annual 
memorial of their deliverance from the bondage of Egypt 
— the seventh day of the week and the Passover fes- 
tival s. Would it not be strange, indeed, that the 

r Book 2. sec. 6, par. 47. s Ex. 13; Deut. 5: 15. 



126 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

redemption of the icorld from death, as assured by the 
resurrection, should not be held in sacred remembrance 
by those whose hope of eternal life is founded on the 
great central fact of the gospel, God's power to their sal- 
vation, the resurrection of their Savior on the Lord's 
day! 

The technical quibble about the word ^ 'death," con- 
nected with the observance of the Lord's supper, in com- 
mem.oration of the Savior's death, and that Friday would 
be a more appropriate time to celebrate his death, is a 
very insignificant objection to Lord's day sacredness, 
and equally so as favoring seventh- day observance. Had 
Paul used the term ''crucifixion" when referring to this 
subject, the matter might have been different. Men ("the 
princes of this world"), crucified, killed "the Lord of 
glory;" but his death, including his glorious release 
therefrom, perfected the act on which the perfect faith 
and hope in the gospel rests. "It is Christ that died, 
yea, rather^ that is risen again." The resurrection of 
Christ was the act of God; therefore the celebration of 
the Lord's supper on the Lord's day is rendering sacred 
homage to God, through Christ. 

In the "Constitutions," are to be found extensive com- 
mentaries on the law, including the decalogue. But all 
references to them go to show that the writers under- 
stood that whatever degree of morality was found in the 
law was embraced in the gospel, and that as a religious 
guide the gospel, therefore, is all sufficient for the dis- 
ciples of Christ; also that the law was given to the Jews 
as a nation, and pertained to them as such. On this 
point we quote: "Thou didst give them the law or deca- 
logue, which was pronounced by thy voice and written 
with thy hand. Thou didst enjoin the observation of the 
sabbath, not affording an occasion of idleness," etc. 
T3ut of Christ's resurrection, and since, the same writer 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 127 

says, ^^on which account loe solemnly assemble to cele- 
brate the feast of the resurrection on the Lord's day." 
Notice, that the writer says "they," the Jews, received 
the law; to ''them" the Sabbath was given. But of the 
Christians, — 'See solemnly assemble" . . . "on the 
Lord's day." By the "Apostolical Constitutions" we 
are borne out in the position that, during the second and 
third centuries "the first day of the week" was known 
as "The Lord's day," and for that reason observed for 
the solemn celebration of public worship of the Lord. 
This work shows "the manners and discipline of" 
the Christians "resident in Greece and the oriental 
regions," and therefore the charge that the Bishop of 
Rome changed the Sabbath from the seventh to the first 
day of the week, does not hold good. If there was a 
change of the day at all after the days of the New Testa- 
ment writers, all the evidence points to the churches of 
the East, and to the time of John the Revelator; and 
then, if any change could be shown, at the very utmost it 
is only in the fact that the divinely inspired name of "the 
Lord's day" was applied to the day of Christ's resurrec- 
tion — the first day of the week. John, in lonely exile on 
Patmos, was keeping "Lord's day," with the seven 
churches of Asia, and his Lord met icith him and opened 
to him the mysterious vail of the coming ages, giving 
him a view of the future works of G-od and men, includ- 
ing the fortunes of the church, in outline, down to the 
close of the Millennium, and further. 

Now, having adduced the testimony of the Ante- 
Nicene Fathers, also that of Origen, and some of the 
evidences of the "Apostolical Constitutions," in proof of 
the indentity of the Lord's day with the first day of the 
week, showing that it was the universal practice of the 
Christian churches to assemble on that day for the wor- 
ship of God, celebrating the Lord's supper on the Lord's 



128 THE CHKISTIAN SABBATil. 

day, at the same time commemorating the Lord's glori- 
our resurrection; and having failed to find any evidence, 
so far, to sustain the assertion that the Sabbath began 
to pass through a change at the hands of Constantine 
the G-reat, a. d. 321, at the Council of Nice, we might 
now proceed to array the evidence of witnesses later 
along, including that of Anatolius, Bishop of Laodicea, 
in Asia, a. d. 270, and of Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, 
Egypt, A. D. 306, with others; but further testimony here 
is not essential to our proposition, it not being denied 
since then to the present time that the first day of the 
week is the Lord's day. 

But it has been asserted that "Eusebius, the special 
friend and flatterer of Constantine, was the first man to 
put forth this doctrine" of the change of the Sabbath. 
But what does Eusebius say touching this subject of the 
Sabbath and the Jews? ''Wherefore as they rejected it, 
[the Word, Christ], by the new covenant, translated and 
transferred the feast o/the sabbath to the morning light, 
and gave us the symbol of true rest, viz., the saving 
Lord's day" t. The transfer of ''^tlie feast of the sahhath,'' 
hi/ Christ, in ''the new covenant," was simply the repe- 
tition, in substance, of Paul, as follows: "Purge out there- 
fore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are 
unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed 
for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, [Margin, holy- 
day] not witJi old leaven [systems of doctrine, or leaven 
of the Pharisees], neither with the leaven of malice and 
wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity 
and truth" u. 

We have already learned that the churches of Corinth, 
G-alatia and Troas, kept the feast of the holy day on the 
first day of the week, and that, too, by apostolic instruc- 

tEueeb. Com. on the PealmB. ul Cor. 5: 7, 8. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 129 

tion and divine command v, Eusebius, then, was seek- 
ing to maintain the sanctity of the Lord's day, as a day 
of worship under the Christian covenant, and to so 
impress the public Roman citizenship, and stand by apos- 
tolic practice. 

Again, complaint is made by Sabbatarians that the 
Fathers and other writers of the primitive church do 
not attach Sahbath sanctify to the resurrection day of our 
Lord. And, for the very best of reasons, for there is 
not an iota of evidence that anyone connected with the 
church in those times, whatever their views may have 
been regarding the sanctity of other days of the week, 
ever questioned the sanctity of the Lord's day, or the 
propriety of assembling for worship on that day. After 
Jesus religiously washed the disciples' feet, no Christian 
questioned the sanctity of the ordinance or act. Since 
Jesus ate the Lord's supper, no professed follower of 
Christ, except the most extreme spiritualizer of God's, 
word, pretends to call in question the sanctity of the 
Lord's supper. During the time of ''The Fathers," 
the question in controversy was urged only by heretics, 
and about the seventh-day sanctity. This is the fact. 

In looking for the time and place where the alleged 
change of the Sabbath was finally effected and com- 
pleted, the Council of Laodicea, held in a. D. 364, was- 
when and where the change was wrought. The Council 
of Laodicea, in Asia, was not a Catholic-general-council. 
It was a council composed of about ''thirty-two bishops'^ 
. . . "from different provinces in Asia" 'w;. It was rather 
a local council. Leberius, bishop of Rome, at this date 
was deposed and exiled. And that he might be released 
from degradation, he "wrote in a most submissive and 
cringing style to the eastern bishops". x. He was not 

t> Acts 20: 1-7; 1 Cor. 16: 1, 2; 14: 37. w McClintock & Slronor's 
Cyclopedia. x Bower's Hist, of the Popes. 



130 THE CHRISTIAN SADBATH. 

represented at that council, either personally or by 
proxy. How this bishop, under these circumstances, 
could change the Sabbath, is a mystery. Surely, if he 
did, the days of miracles had not yet ended! 

This council is barely -noticed by some historians, and 
by some not mentioned at all, as reference to them at 
this date will abundantly show. But what did this little 
council do? It sim^ply took measures to meet the 
encroachments of the judaizing heretics who were becom- 
ing somewhat aggressive in the vicinities of Laodicea 
and maintaining that the Sabbath of the law was equally 
prominent with the Lord's day. I have failed to find 
any evidence that the church of Rome had anything, 
whatever, to do with the Council of Laodicea. More- 
over, at this time (a. d. 364), the bishops of Rome had no 
jurisdiction over other bishops, nor were superior to 
them. In the very nature of the case, then, the Sabbath 
could not have been changed by the church of Rome or 
its bishop at the Council of Laodicea. Anatolius was 
bishop of the church of Laodicea, in a. d. 270, as we have 
seen. In one of his canons (also cited by Elder J. N. 
Andrews), he says: "The solemn festival of the resurrec- 
tion of the Lord can be celebrated only on the Lord! 8 
day ' y. 

The Laodicean church was one of the "seven churches 
of Asia," beloved of God at the time of the writing of 
John's Revelation, and the subject of God's counsel and 
severe chastisement through John z. It was known to, 
and perhaps founded by, the apostle Paul a, and, like the 
churches of Corinth and Galatia, no doubt, was taught 
to observe "the first day of the week" as a day of wor- 
ship and celebration of the Lord's supper. And having 
the writings of John, it could not have failed to learn of 

y Complete Teetimony, p. 94, 10th Canon. z Rev, 3: 19. 
« Col. 4:16. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 131 

him that that day was ''the Lord's day." In this church 
was aline of succession tracing "the Lord's day" direct 
to John the Revelator, who first gave that inspired name 
to the day of Christ's resurrection, and, for the Council 
of Laodicea to pass resolutions in honor of, and to 
express a determination to continue its observance, as" a 
day of sacred worship to God through Christ, who was 
raised from the dead on that day, was reasonable, but it 
was not to change the Sabbath. 

Therefore, as no time and place has yet been found 
where the Pope of Rome, or the Catholic Church, changed 
the Sabbath; and since there was no Pope known in the 
world in A. D. 364, the claim that he changed the Sabbath, 
at any time, is baseless. 

From the days of the apostles, and during the times 
of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, the periods of the councils 
herein referred to, and, in fact, all along the ages since 
to the present time, there has been sabbatizing, hereti- 
cal sects, and their reasons for Sabbath observance have 
been substantially the arguments urged for it by Sabba- 
tarians at the present. Says Elder Andrews, "In 1607, 
an English first-day writer, John Sprint, gave the views 
of the Sabbath-keepers of that time, which in truth have 
been substantially the same in all ages" h, 

CONCLUSION. 

Paul, the great apostle of Jesus to the Gentiles, with 
the Gentile churches of his time, kept holy the first day 
of the w^eek. the day of Christ's resurrection, esteeming 
it as the proper day for celebrating the Lord's supper, 
the day called by John afterward "the Lord's day." 
Paul honored it as by divine appointment for solemn 
assembly, for preaching the word of God, for prayer, for 
the breaking of bread, for charity and for the remem- 

h Hist, of the Sab., p. 480. 



132 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

brance of the poor c. And then this apostle and faith- 
ful witness of Christ wrote to the Corinthians, and to 
'^all that in everyplace call on the name of Jesus Christ," 
saying, ^'Be ye followers of me, even as I am of Christ" 
d. And Christ, as we have seen, met with his disciples, 
when the new covenant became of force, on the day 
when he, ' ^according to the Scriptures, ' ' arose from the 
dead, "the third day" from the crucifixion day, the first 
day of the week, and also on the eighth day from the day 
of his resurrection. Yes; Jesus set the example after- 
ward followed by the apostles, disciples, and Paul. He 
assembled with his disciples the evening of the same 
day of his glorious resurrection from the dark, mysteri- 
ous land of death, and renewed the hope of life in their 
hearts. And though they ''shut the door for fear of 
the Jews," they nevertheless assembled that day, when 
they might, with greater safety, have waited till the 
Sabbath. But they omitted to assemble the Sabbath 
following, because Jesus had evidently arranged to meet 
with them again on the following first day of the week, 
to strengthen their faith, and instruct them in the 
things of "the kingdom of Grod" e. Meetings, after this, 
were in Galilee, as previously ^arranged and '^appointed'' 
by the Lord/. In fact, all the circumstances connected 
with these first-day meetings of Christ with his disciples 
appear to favor the idea that they were all held in 
accordance with previous appointment. Had the Savior 
washed the disciples' feet as often as he met with his 
disciples for worship on the first day of the week, after 
his resurrection, who, among the followers of Christ, 
would not have accepted it as of perpetual obligation, 
and as a divine institution? Especially since, during a 

• 1 Cor. 14:37; 16:1, 2; Acte. 90: 1-7. cil Cor. 11:1. «AcUl:3; 
John 30: 26. / Matt. 38: 7, 16. 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 133 

forty-days sojourn with them, not a seventh-day meeting 
was held, so far as the record shows. 

With all this array of evidence, including the example 
of Christ and the apostles and the church during the 
days of her ancient glory and inspiration, with the divine 
teachings of the authorized ministry of our Lord, all 
honoring the great day of the resurrection of our Lord^ ^Hhe 
Lord's day,'' that day that brings to the mind of all 
nations once every seven days wherever the gospel is 
proclaimed the Savior, not only as the ^'Everlasting 
Father," the Creator of all things 'Visible and invisible," 
but as a Savior, Redeemer and Lord of the redeemed and 
glorified through the gospel, which is the power of G-od 
unto salvation, may we not with all confidence conclude 
that the notable day of Christ's resurrection, ''the 
Lord's day," is "the Christian Sabbath, or weekly rest- 
day," in deed and in truth! 

Observation. — I have followed the lead of Elder J. N. 
Andrews in examination of some of the evidences cited 
or used by him in the second division of the subject, 
because he is considered by many, to be one of the 
ablest, if not the very ablest Sabbath advocate in the 
United States at the present tima. 

0. Scott. 



134 



CHAPTER Xy. 

THE ORIGINAL WORDS. 

As a fitting conclusion to the foregoing work, we now 
produce undeniable proof that, after the crucifixion of 
Christ, the first day of the week was known and denom- 
inated by the Chrstians of those times as their Sabbath 
— a day of rest and worship. The first proof-texts we 
present are from "Yomig's Bible Translation," a work 
claiming to be "a strictly literal and idiomatic render- 
ing of the Original Hebrew and Greek Texts." The 
scholarship of this translator is above question, for he 
stands endorsed by the leading Hebrew and Greek 
scholars of our times. His Analytical Concordance of the 
Bihle^ his Ilehreio and Greek Lexicons^ and his other popu- 
lar works, as well as his Bihle Translation^ place him in 
the very front rank of Hebrew and Greek scholars. The 
following is his literal rendering of Matthew 28: 1, from 
the original text as penned by its author: ''And on the 
eve of the Sabbaths, at the dawn, toward the first of the 
Sabbaths, came .Mary the Magdalene, and the other 
Mary, to see the sepulchre." 

Mark 16: 1 and 9 he renders thus: "And the Sabbath 
[Jewish Sabbath.— Ed.] having past, Mary the Magda- 
lene, and Mary of James, and Salome, bought spices, that 
having come, they may anoint him, and early in the 
morning of the first of the Sabbaths [under the New 
Covenant dispensation. — Ed.], they come unto the sepul- 
chre, at the rising of the sun. . . . And he, having risen 
in the morning of the first of the Sabbaths, did appear 

134 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 1^5 

first to Mary the Magdalene, out of whom he had cast 
seven demons." 

Luke 24: 1 he gives in these words: '^And on the first 
of the Sabbaths, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, 
bearing the spices they made ready, and certain others 
with them." 

John 20: 1 he gives as follows: "And on the first of 
the Sabbaths, Mary the Magdalene doth come early 
(there being yet darkness) to the tomb." And verse 19 
thus: ''It being, therefore, evening, on that day, the 
first of the Sabbaths, and the doors having been shut 
where the disciples were assembled, through fear of the 
Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and saith to 
them, 'Peace to you;' and this having said, he showed 
them his hands and side; the disciples, therefore; rejoiced, 
having seen the Lord." 

Mark it well, — these texts are from the original Greek, 
being transferred into the English language after an 
exact, literal manner. Now by these testimonies we 
learn that the first Christian writers, and the first apos- 
tles, held and taught that, after the crucifixion of our 
Lord, the first day of the week was, and was to be, the 
Christians' Sabbath — their appointed day for rest and 
worship. 

The phrase, "The first of the Sabbaths," may be readily 
understood as meaning the first of the Sabhaths under the 
New Covenant order, that order which was fully estab- 
lished by the death and resurrection of the Christ. In- 
deed, it seems quite impossible for the phrase to have 
any other meaning. 

That Young's translation of the foregoing texts is the 
exactly correct one, may be seen by consulting the same 
texts in the Greek as found in Wilson's or Griesbach's 
Emphatic DiagJott^ or in any Greek New Testament, 
for there we find that the Greek word Sahhaton is the 



136 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

same as the Englirh word Sabbath, and that it occurs as 
in the texts quoted from Young's Translation as before 
shown. 

In the German New Testament, Matt. 28: 1 (trans- 
lated literally from the G-reek), when rendered in the 
English, reads, — ^'First holy day of the Sabbaths;" 
Mark 16: 9 reads, — ^'first day of the Sabbaths;" Luke 
24: 1 reads, — "one of the Sabbaths;" John 20: 1 reads, — 
"one of the Sabbaths," and verse 19 reads,— "in the 
evening of the same Sabbath," while Acts 20: 7 reads, 
"upon one of the Sabbaths," and 1 Cor. 16: 2 reads, — 
"on each of the Sabbaths." By these texts we see that 
this German translation is in essential harmony with the 
translations before quoted and cited, all proving that, in 
the original Greek texts, what is rendered "the first day 
of the week," in the Authorized Version^ and similar 
versions, is there rendered "the first of the Sabbaths," 
etc., etc. 

Jesus, after his resurrection, commanded his apostles 
and said, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, bap- 
tizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded yoii]'' and he had also said to 
them, "When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will 
guide you into all truth;" therefore we conclude that, 
whatever the apostles observed, and by their writings 
and examples taught others to observe, these are among 
the "all things" which Jesus commanded them. Conse- 
quently, when we find the apostles and the primitive 
Christians writing of the first day of the week, after the 
resurrection of Christ, and calling it "the first of the 
Sabbaths" and also observing that day, particularly, as 
their day of rest and worship, it is evident that Christ 
had so instructed and commanded them. 

We further add that, there is not one text in the New 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 137 

Testament, after the cross, commanding in any way the 
Saints to keep the seventh-day Sabbath. There is not 
one text in it forbidding labor on that day after the cru- 
cifixion and resurrection of Christ; neither is there one 
text commanding that day as a day of public worship. 
There is not one text in it that proves the seventh day 
to have been set apart for the church, as such, for rest 
and public worship. There is not a text in it proving 
that the Christians did not abstain from labor on the 
first day of the week. There is not one text in it com- 
manding that, after the resurrection of Christ, the min- 
istry were to teach or preach the law given at Sinai, nor 
the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. Thoi^e is not 
one text in the Bible proving that the seventh day was 
ever commanded of God, or kept by man, from the cre- 
ation to the exodus from Egypt. There is not one text 
in the Bible, nor one item of history, proving that any 
other than the first day of the week is called the ^'Lord's 
day." There is not one conclusive item in ancient church 
history proving that the Church of Christ, as such, 
abstained from labor on the seventh day, and observed 
that day as a day of worship. Nor is there conclusive 
■proof in such history that Christ's Church, as such, ever 
observed any other day as a day of public worship or 
weekly Sabbath except the first day of the week. Neither 
is there valid historic proof that Christ's Church per- 
formed common labor on the first day of the week and 
did not hold their regular weekly assemblies for worship 
on that day. 

Now in view of all the facts hereinbefore presented, 
it is clear that the seventh day was first set apart for 
rest and public worship at Sinai, and pertained alone to 
Israel and Israelitish proselytes, and, by the will of G-od 
and the teachings of Christ and his apostles, terminated 
at the cross. And it is further evident that, from the 



138 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

resurrection of our Lord, the first day of the week, by 
the will and commandment of God through Christ, was 
.ordained and set apart to and for his people for rest and 
public worship and as the memorial day of the new cove- 
nant and new creation in Christ Jesus. 

Schalf, "History Christian Church," pp. 478-9, says: 
"The first day was already in the apostolic age honor- 
ably designated as 'the Lord's Day.' On that day Paul 
met with the disciples at Troas and preached till mid- 
night. On that day he ordered the Galatian and Corin- 
thian Christians to make, no doubt in connection with 
divine service, their weekly contributions to charitable 
objects according to their ability. It appears, therefore, 
from the New Testament itself, that Sunday was 
observed as a day of worship, and in special commemo- 
ration of the resurrection, whereby the work of redemp- 
tion was finished. 

"The universal and uncontradicted Sunday observance 
in the second century can only be explained by the fact 
that it had root in apostolic practice. Such observance 
is the more to be appreciated as it had no support in 
civil legislation before the age of Constantine [a. d. 306- 
337. — Ed.], and must have been connected with many 
inconveniences, considering the lowly social condition 
of the majority of Christians and their dependence 
upon their heathen masters and employers. . . . 
Besides the Christian Sunday, the Jewish Christians 
observed their ancient Sabbath also, till Jerusalem 
was destroyed. After that event, the Jewish habit 
continued only among the Ebionites and Naza- 



renes." 



In Fisher's "History Christian Church," p. 64, we find 
the following: "The Jewish Christians, who were fol- 
lowed by the oriental churches, not only observed Sun- 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 13^^ 

day but Saturday also. The Roman Christians, on the 
contrary, fasted on Saturday/' 

We close with the following from Smith's Dictionary, 
Bible, Article Lord's Day: "The results of our examin- 
ation of the principal writers of the two centu- 
ries after the death of St. John are as follows: 
The Lord's Day (a name which has now come out 
more prominently, and is connected more explicitly 
with our Lord's resurrection than before) existed 
during these two centuries as a part and parcel of 
apostolical and so of Scriptural Christianity. It was 
never defended: for it was never impugned, or at least 
only impugned as other things received from the apostles 
were. It was never confounded with the Sabbath, but 
carefully distinguished from it. ... It was not a day of 
severe Sabbatical character, but a day of joy and cheer- 
fulness, rather encouraging than forbidding relaxation. 
Religiously regarded, it was a day of solemn meeting 
for the Holy Eucharist, for united prayer, for instruc- 
tion, for alms-giving." 

In this book is presented an amount of evidence that 
is simply overwhelming, and such kinds of proof as are 
quite irrefutable, and as such we commit the work to 
the candid judgment of all who will examine its pages. 

W. W. Blair. 



